Ls400 Upper wishbone bushes

[Luke Kidd 1]

Hi guys, I've had a squeaky noise and found it to be the bushes on the upper wishbone, would like to know what my options are, I'd rather not use polybushes as I'd like to keep it as wafty as possible, has anyone used amayama for these before?

[Malc1]

Luke hi  ......... many members here, including me, have happily used Amayama for supplies .  others Rockauto and also LexusPartsDirect too ..  where one doesn't wish to buy from Lexus nor Toyota Main Dealers 

It might be that the noise your hearing doesn't necessitate replacement ....  others might be able to advise maybe !

Good luck

Malc

oh, I've not personally had brilliant experiences of BluePrint for this sort of serious stuff 

[ambermarine]

If you are talking about the front upper wishbone they are not servicable bushings.A complete new one is required and the aftermarket ones are rubbish expect to pay around £250 +vat from lexus.

[Malc1]

My earlier simple experience, many years back,  of having purchased this stuff and similar is that the Lexus price is horrendous and the Amayama price ( of original and Toyota stamped product )  worked out about 50% of that when including actual unit price + carriage + Import Duty + vat + a small paperwork handling charge ........  £250 might be a little wishful thinking tho !  🤑

I have read ( I think here somewhere ) that someone might have attempted poly bushing stuff but might have eventually reverted to a full replacement unit .............

What's your mileage etc ?  it's always interesting to know .....  and of course, at the price of all this serious stuff you might wish to wait until there's an MOT Advisory before the big bucks start to get spent ...  in my experience original units on the car might last for upwards of 150k miles before failure ...............  driving style of course possibly has a bearing 😅

Malc

[Luke Kidd 1]

Yeah sorry I should have specified, it's at the rear, only one side on the drivers side, the squeak is constant going over any sort of bumps, if I'm honest I can barely even hear it with the windows up in this car, however windows down it us becoming annoying, the bushing itself isn't completely perished but definitely looks somewhat worn

[Luke Kidd 1]

Mileage is on 210k miles and I've owned it a month, driving it feels like it could be 30 or 50 it really is unbelievable 

[Malc1]

These are truly amazing cars  .  mine's on 245k and after nigh on 12 years having bought her at 123k miles from a Member on here ........... surely yours had some suspension / steering replacements over the years ?

Have you any service records, MOT Advisories you may impart  ?

Mine's a Mk3  .  but i did have a Mk2 and a Mk1 prior .  and over some 25 years and qtr million miles too .  just AMAZING cars tbh 

My Mk1 I had new front stuff at about 125k miles long way back and now my Mk3 it's all done, having started at about 145k miles with the front N/side and a BluePrint replacement which only lasted about 45k miles .  all the rest done at about 200k miles including replacing the " new " Blueprint one too

I heard the front N/side just go a slight " clunk " when I was motoring around the Dolomites, stopped and couldn't see anything untoward and she drove fine too  .  got back and it was changed .  for the comparatively duff BluePrint one 

Look after yours and she could last you for donkeys years tbh  .  I've not read of any poly bush success stories either  .  also make sure the cam belt, pulleys etc and waterpump are changed at 10 years / 100k miles or so .  it's a very very big all day job tho' ..  you possibly won't do it twice eh !

otherwise just simple regular annual maintenance and once in a lifetime big stuff hopefully

Tell us more .  if you wish

Malc

[Luke Kidd 1]

Thank you for your help, I really look forward to keeping this car for as long as possible, I've got a couple small jobs that I am getting along with and want to get my hands dirty attempting some stuff with help from friends who know more than me. I would like to do the best I can to avoid poly bushing, when looking at amayama, there appears to be an entire control arm, and then options of two bushings, the cheapest looking like the cheap eBay stuff, and then the more expensive one appearing to be of oem quality, wondering if you have experience at all with the febest bushings and would last longer than a year. I'm going to try to attach two screenshots

[runsgrateasanut]

I started to get a creaking sound at the rear passenger side and asked my Mechanic to put some silicone spray on the bushes. Seems to have done the job. The rear wishbones were looking pretty ropey when I had the rear strut problem a couple or so years back bu I do have replacement Toyota parts should they become a MOT "fail". Had them for must be five or so years and cost £700 if I remember correctly. One day........if I last that long! 

[Luke Kidd 1]

Seems like the smart thing to do is try to lubricate them and see if the noise goes, and not fiddle unless I need to

[Malc1]

please give us the update too

Thanks

Malc

[Tinonline]

Could be anything…worth replacing anti roll bar bushes and the upper bar cam adjustment rod bushes too as they will go with age.

[Luke Kidd 1]

Have checked the bushings all round, jacked the car up onto blocks whilst the wheel was on and got someone to bounce the rear right to identify the squeak

[steve2006]

I had a similar situation with my front UCAs on my previous LS400, they squeaked when going over the local road humps but only when the car was just started from cold, ambient temperature made no difference.

A quick trip to the shop and coming back no noise.

Silicone spray grease on the bushings sorted the problem so became a routine treatment when the wheels were off for yearly servicing.

I did end up having to replace a complete front UCA after a pothole took out the ball joint, at the time a genuine Lexus part was listed at £521.00 but I was lucky to find the same on eBay for around £150.00!

[Malc1]

20 hours ago, steve2006 said:

front UCA

that was a brilliant price for sure.........  mine cost £££ lots  ( can't remember now ) BUT what i do remember is they arrived ( from Amayama ).  I bought a pair .  and each individually wrapped and stamped Toyota and penned in indelible ink on the plastic packaging was on one,  " left" and on the other,  " right  ".............  seemed identical to me tho'  😇

Malc

[Howplum]

If Amayama sell Febest and other aftermarket parts, would it be foolish to assume they are happy with the quality, bearing in mind they sell OEM parts? Discuss!

[Malc1]

14 hours ago, Howplum said:

Discuss!

gawd alone knows ............ BluePrint is very good BUT the UCA only lasted 45k miles for me .  now some would say that's quite acceptable, and indeed a lifetime for many owners ...........  but it's not OEM and to me, gave rise to a premature and utter hopeless failure 😉

It's all in the eye of the beholder methinks !  .  and the available bank balance at that time maybe

Malc

[BigBoomer]

In the various motoring forums I participate in I hear quite a lot of people talking up OEM parts and talking down aftermarket parts. Aftermarket does not automatically mean crap and OEM does not automatically mean quality. Also, most people fail to consider HOW the new part was fitted. If you have a ham fisted mechanic fitting an OEM part then they can screw it up just as bad as a poorly fitted aftermarket part. Additionally, don't forget that you are replacing one part of a complex mechanism and the wear on that new part could be accelerated by the existing wear in the associated parts.

What I also find hilarious (especially at the moment) is the current "down" on all Chinese parts, even though the manufacturers get a LOT of their parts from mainland China and put their own label on them. Quite often you will pay a small ransom for a part that was made in China for peanuts but since it is an "OEM" part it must be good and worth the money. Most of us are old enough to remember when Japanese meant crap and before that Taiwanese meant crap, yet here we are driving quality Japanese cars and using quality Taiwanese made smartphones.

Hopefully a squirt of spray silicone lube will fix your squeak.
You said that you identified it but didn't elaborate. Care to enlighten us?
Was it a dogs squeaky ball stuck in the suspension linkages? 🤣

[Tulpen]

1 hour ago, BigBoomer said:

Was it a dogs squeaky ball stuck in the suspension linkages? 

I hope the dog wasn't still attached!!!

[Luke Kidd 1]

Not sure what else you'd like me to elaborate on, I stated it was the rear upper wishbone bushes. I've used some silicon spray, silence for 5 minutes but hasn't lasted, wondering if anyone knows of a lubricant that would last longer or am I just going to have to replace the bushings

[Razor61]

1 minute ago, Luke Kidd 1 said:

Not sure what else you'd like me to elaborate on, I stated it was the rear upper wishbone bushes. I've used some silicon spray, silence for 5 minutes but hasn't lasted, wondering if anyone knows of a lubricant that would last longer or am I just going to have to replace the bushings

I would guess one or more of the bushes are split/cracked and there is movement in the bush causing the squeaking and lube works cures it for a short while. New arms or new bushes is the only answer in my opinion. New arms will come with new ball joints of course, I wouldn't want to go through all the work of removing the arms, installing new bushes and refitting them only to find the ball joints need doing after a while. Just my view of course.

[Malc1]

21 minutes ago, Luke Kidd 1 said:

silence for 5 minutes but hasn't lasted,

there's going to be a financial equation somewhere down this line for you to consider  ........  maybe £100 a minute to remove a " squeak "  .......... 🤣

Did the last MOT reveal any Advisory or indeed might a fresh MOT do so  .  if not then i would live with a minor squeak and turn up the radio 😇

Malc

[Luke Kidd 1]

No advisories a month ago, all bushes look fine which is why I expected a spray of grease to do the trick, only really affected with the window down and that's only a few months in this country so guess I'll wait until they need doing, stereo system sounds great anyway

[BigBoomer]

4 hours ago, Luke Kidd 1 said:

Not sure what else you'd like me to elaborate on, I stated it was the rear upper wishbone bushes. I've used some silicon spray, silence for 5 minutes but hasn't lasted, wondering if anyone knows of a lubricant that would last longer or am I just going to have to replace the bushings

Sorry, I misunderstood. 
You can get the bushes separately here if you have the means of pushing the old ones out and the new ones in:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/125867088435

If the ball joint is also gone, then you can also get those here:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/323167146689

Other bushes/ball joints are available 😉

[Luke Kidd 1]

Thats great thankyou very much, those look like the oem quality to me, hopefully not the cheap eBay stuff I've seen people say lasts a year at best