98 civic rear upper arm

you can replace just the bushing if you have the right bearing press. but it's highly unusual for these bushings to be so badly worn they need replacement, especially on a comparatively young car like yours. do you have extreme mileage and/or bad roads? if so, it's much more likely the main bushing on the lower arm is a much more pressing issue. go to tegger.com for replacement advice.

if you've already replaced it with non-oem, which you have to had done as the oem jounts are only available with the arm assembly complete, then it's likely an inferior part. i'd just replace the whole with oem.

how big is big? theoretically, yes, it can cause a pickup problem, but it needs to be severe to be a likely issue.

sounds to me like they're "fishing" for labor-intensive work to keep the junior techs employed.

Thanks for the reply Jim.

I have a pretty good relationship with the dealership, and they actually know that I would be planning to do the work myself.

I spoke with the tech that did the inspection, he said that the bushings on the upper arm were so worn that the arm itself was leaning against the frame of the car.

I also asked what kind of shape the main bushing was in, he said it was fine.

I'm in Winnipeg, the roads are pretty shitty up here. The car has

230000km on it now, I expect that this problem may have something to do with the time my girlfriend drove the car 110kms with the back wheel almost falling off (the lugs were loose and she couldn't figure that out, duh!)

As for the balljoint, I would tend to agree with you that the part or the installation must have been defective. It was so much less expensive than replacing the whole upper control arm though. I have learnt my lesson... :)

The dent in the pan is pretty big. But its been like that since about

80000kms and the car runs great with no oil light on or anything. I think its ok, but I do plan on fixing it. A thourough inspection of the pickup and everything else down there is in order.

Thanks again, any further thoughts on these issues is greatly appreciated!

Terry

About 18 months ago I replaced nearly all of the control arm bushings on my '88 Civic. I purchased parts from

and Ifound that purchasing the bushings for the rear upper control armsseparately was just a few dollars less than purchasing the whole arm. Thiswas also true for the rear compensator arms. I decided that the smalldifference in price wasn't worth it even though I had a hydraulic shop pressavailable to me and just purchased the new arms. Now for the front and rearlower control arms this was not the case. The bushings were quite a bitless expensive than the whole arm so I pressed in new bushings. The cardrives much better now with a smoother feel. OK, for your vehicle thebushings are around $35 while the whole rear upper arm is around $41. Iguess you have to ask how much your time is worth but I would still get anew arm.

Eric

Thanks for the input, I will be going for the full upper arm, not just the bushings now.

t