Poly Bushings

I am getting a lot of squeaking from my front driver side during turning. I'm sure something needs to be greased
 
I installed poly bushings on my Saturn a few years ago. It was the single most painful experience I've ever gone through while working on a car. It took all day Saturday, and all day Sunday. On Monday, I had to order new bolts from the dealership. On Wednesday, the bolts came in and I got the car aligned. So for 5 days, my car was out of commission. I broke a ton of tools, got melted rubber all over my garage and driveway, it took a week or so before my hands were finally clean again, and after a year or so the front lower control arm/sway bar bushing came apart while at an autox and I had uncontrollable toe-out on one wheel.

Hopefully the install goes smoother and the bushings last longer than mine did.
 
Well, aren't we bitter?
(thought)

Cheer up! And thank you for sharing with us about ur experience. (hippy)
 
email from global partially explaining why 2 months after ordering i still have no bushings;

Hello Andre -

I understand your frustration and I apologize for your inconvenience. I
would like to mention that our promises are only as good as our supplier's,
and when they don't make good on theirs, well, you see what happens. You
were told that these bushings were in transit because that is what SuperPro
told us. Only when we received the shipment in question did we realize that
SuperPro had updated their packing list and marked your bushing kits as
backordered. That obviously has nothing to do with you, and I'm not trying
to make excuses for Global Performance Parts or SuperPro, I just want you to
know exactly what happened.

I also want to apologize for the mistake with your credit card information.
We are not sure why we only received the first and last 4 digits of your
credit card info, but the reason we didn't catch it right away is because we
wait until we have all of our customer's parts in stock and ready to ship
before applying charges. In the current era of rampant internet credit card
fraud, I'd like to reassure you that your information is safe with us, as
our online store uses 256-bit high-grade encryption. I assume it goes
without saying, but I also want to reassure you that our company takes your
privacy seriously, and we would never do anything untoward with your
personal information.


...
 
I installed poly bushings on my Saturn a few years ago. It was the single most painful experience I've ever gone through while working on a car. It took all day Saturday, and all day Sunday. On Monday, I had to order new bolts from the dealership. On Wednesday, the bolts came in and I got the car aligned. So for 5 days, my car was out of commission. I broke a ton of tools, got melted rubber all over my garage and driveway, it took a week or so before my hands were finally clean again, and after a year or so the front lower control arm/sway bar bushing came apart while at an autox and I had uncontrollable toe-out on one wheel.

Hopefully the install goes smoother and the bushings last longer than mine did.

yeah, the pursuit for performance sometimes overshadows the effort required with some parts. i would be interested in changing out the bushings on my car for poly, but only after i had everything in hand and ready to go before i start.

i had replaced the bushings on my old 72 triumph spitfire with poly, and loved every minute of them - AFTER they were installed. the installation took me a full weekend, and i was glad it wasn't my only car at the time, too.

the news from "tap'n'die" about his order is a little disappointing, but the protege isn't a widely accepted performance ride. set-backs like this can be expected, but can be frustrating. i was hoping for a quicker turn-around on these. doesn't look like i'll be in on these now, as my car is getting too old to put a bunch more money into it on things like these.
 
I wasn't even all that impressed with mine after it was all said and done.

And a Saturn S-series is also not on too many people's short list as a performance ride. At least the Protege was featured in a magazine article about the best handling cars.
 
and there really isn't too many bushings to replace in the protege suspension either. two on each side in the front, and MAYBE 6 on each side in the rear. but, i'd be willing to be that the lateral links don't really need them. so, that leaves only 2 per side in the rear. (the trailing arms)
 
It is generally the trailing arm bushings that make the most difference, when these deform under high load the geometry of the suspension changes a little.

The main difference is steering feel and precision, it makes it easier to nail the apex consistently. The other difference is if you use the offset one to adjust caster; but you really need to know what you are doing to know if your car needs more or less of it.
 
i'd like to get more caster for better on center feel - and i'm contemplating AWR trailing arms to further stiffen up my rear. ;) however, with all that is required to change out the front bushings, including the wait for the bushings, i'm thinking against changing the front too far from stock.
 
What I'm runnin': :/

Suspension
-D2 Motorsports Coilovers, front upper pillow ball mounts with adj. height & dampening
-Stock 16" wheels 5 spoke siiver with -1.75 deg camber in front on Dunlop 195/45/R16
-Corksport Strut Tower brace
-H & R 25mm 5 lug AL spacers
-AWR 21.5mm Rear sway bar
-AWR Adj Endlinks Front & Rear
-AWR Trailing Arms with AutoX bushings
-MSP brake upgrade aka 626 calipers, pads and rotors
-Corksport SS Brake lines
-GT Spec front ladder bar
 
nice list crazee D Sounds like control arm bushings are about the only thing missing!


I have been assured i should get them by the end of the month.

My car probably has the longest way to go of all... almost 60K miles on it. First thing i did was scrape, prime and undercoat, tried to uncover some rust nests and address that so that it doesn't deteriorate too fast. Replaced the paper filter with a K&N panel. Slapped some brembo oem rotors and pbr axis pads and ss lines on all 4 corners with pentosyn 4.1 fluid, replaced the crappy tires it had when i got it with some 205/45r16 marangoni zeta linea (so far i love them, definitley too good for the suspension now). stuffed the motor mounts with eurethane (still too soft, must upgrade) I also got the water pump and timing belt. Is this or is this not an interference engine? Sounds like a real b**** to do so i am going to pay to get that done... I have a header that i will be installing as soon as the warranty runs out... Just out of superstition. Plus that's only an oil change away...

I also got a fiberglass hood it's 30% lighter than oem with functional ram air intake and bellows that fits to the original airbox sealing the ram to the box for full effect, this maintains the original 90 degree elbow at the mouth of the airbox and thus keeps that "silencer" part too! IMO, fiberglass being a poor conductor and cold air being forced straight into it at speed should be more effective and quieter than any CAI out there. It's in the body shop getting painted as we speak.

Alternatively, this leaves room for use of custom intake piping combined with use of a PRM closed cone air filter instead of the airbox.

Funny people have been replacing the shifter mounts with stiffer PU; either the guy before me did it or it just really doesn't need to be done on this car, it is as firm as it should be.
 
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LOL

when did this happen? This would have saved me a lot of time... plus you KNOW these fit, in my case it's still uncertain... Oh well, at least i will know where to get the rear ones...

seems to be within the past couple of days. they look nice, too.
 
Well,

screw it people... if someone else cares to experiment with bushings that are not guaranteed to fit go ahead. I finally got an email stating that they would ship out on tuesday if i still wanted to go ahead. this means they at least have one landed set in the USA so if you want it be my guest.

Going to get pedders from corksport, and it can wait till next spring to save a harsh winter on the grease joints of PU bushings is not a bad thing, the grip season is almost over anyway...

What a shame, i should have been able to test these easily a couple of months ago, but since i am going zero offset i have no need to risk non fitment with the superpro's (eventhough i am pretty confident they would fit)
 
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