I am just installing what will be the 4th right front control arm on our 2006 Prius.. This will be the third time it has failed safety inspection because ot this. The reason is always that there is play in the front bushing. With the car jacked up you can see it move. The drivers side does not have this play. I just removed the third control arm (Oem Toyota) and compared it to the brand new arm and the bolt is loose in both of them. I can remember thinking the bolt seemed loose in the bushing when I replaced the last one. The bolt was also new from Toyota. I am sure this is where's the noise and play is coming from. So I must be missing something. I don't know if the bolt was not torqued enough. I was on pretty tight. Does anyone have the torque specs for the control arm? You can't use a torque wrench anyway because there is not room to get it in there. Does anyone have any ideas?
The passenger one the tougher one to do as well with the oil pan in the way. I just tightened mine tight. Pretty sure mine was original when replaced on my 04 last year. How old are the struts and strut mount? Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
The struts are about a year old. The strut mount is original, but the bearing had no sign of wear when I did the struts. The play is definitely the front control arm bushing. You can see it move Yeah the right one is a bit of a pain but it's not that bad dropping the crossmember to get the bolt out Thank you for the torque information. I actually just found that manual in another Prius chat thread. The recommended procedure in that is to actually remove the subframe from the car to change the control arms. That seems pretty crazy just to replace the control arms. One thing I did notice in that manual is that it says to torque the control arm bushing bolts with the control arm loaded. I'm gonna try this and see if it makes any difference, because as far as I can tell there is nothing wrong with the control arm.
Why did you not replace the strut mount? Its 12+ years old. Its only a $59 part on Amazon, for the KYB SM5215; KYB is OE for the Prius. So you went by a visual inspeciton and determined it was good to go?
I had a little play in the mount if i pushed hard side to side and mine are 14 years old. As far as the arm didnt need to totally drop sub frame but flex down the fronts passenger side to do the bolt. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Thank you for the help, I think I have it worked out. I did only drop the right side of the subframe to slip the front bolt past the oil pan. Leaving the bushing bolts loose and then torquing them while loaded with the weight of the car seemed to make a big difference. The play and the rattling sound is totally gone. I did not replace the control arm because the old one had the same amount of play as the new one. It probably is a good idea to replace the strut mounts when doing struts. In my case, I am quite sure the original strut mounts are not causing the problem. The bearings in them were in very good condition when I replaced the struts. Also, I live in a rust belt so I am expecting the car will have rust issues, or will have battery failure long before the strut mount fails.
I'm glad you figured that out. The factory repair manual instructions suggest the vehicle should be lowered and the suspension bounced a few times, prior to torquing the two bolts to 101 ft.-lb. I would imagine it is not easy to reach the bolts with the car on the ground, so this would be one scenario where the use of ramps supporting the front wheels might be helpful.
To use the topic for a question. I am about to change the control arms but i dont want to buy an aftermarket complete arm, i can get me some bushings. Some are Poly, some are good colorful rubber. D you have any experience with some of them? I have a bench puller as well as 20ton press access so wont be a problem to remove and install them LINK LINK These are rubber ones
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