I’m looking for technical help or recommendations on rear bushes.
My car had MOT advisory on suspension arm pin or bush worn - Nearside Rear Lower ((front) outer bush) and Offside Rear Lower ((front) outer bush. This would explain the annoying ‘knocking noise’ when on a bumpy road.
For entertainment purposes I went to a local Mazda main dealer to get the assembly drawing of rear bush assy. and to understand if it was possible to buy and change individual bushes. So it looks like Mazda only offer a rear bush assembly - and the price I was given was £841.58 - per side!!!
I jacked up my car and had a close look at the rear bushes - seems to be 8 bushes per side (if you include the suspension arms).
My questions are this:-
If you need to change one bush - is it better to change them all?
What are folks experience with Polybush - should I consider them?
Is the £841 per side all in, i.e including labour?
I’d personally do the Mazda route if so. ‘OEM man’ etc etc. You replace all the bushes then, not just the affected ones. And since ~2022 they have been improved so shouldn’t need doing again. Probably get a decent guarantee with the Mazda route. Mazda would most probably do a good will too up to 5 years say in the unlikely even the improved ones go bad again. Try fighting with a ‘trusty independent’ and an indy bush maker purchase, 5 years on lol
Also, if you have full Mazda service history, it might be worth dropping them an email to see if you can get some good will. After all, you car is 6 ish years old, and if you bought one today they’d be borderline still under warrenty
Edit: Tha might be a LOT of labour money.
MX-5 parts seems to do the hubs, £440 odd a side (minus postage). So Mazda are asking ~ £400 a side labour, £800 total?? So it takes two hours or so a side??
There are various after market options that now have multi year proof of working. I’ll leave you to your own search to find the various vendors, there are ‘spherical bearings’ which are like for like replacement and ‘bushes’ which aren’t though people do stand by them.
Oh and I would not be going down the dealer route, they can only offer one option and in my personal opinion is excessive.
If you have some basic skills and like the look of the DIY fix video you can buy all the bushes and tool and save some labour costs. If you feel your skill set is not up to the job, show the video to an independent garage and ask them to fit them for you.
I’ve bought about 4-5 bits and bobs from Mazda dealerships, from washers to car mats, to touch up pens, to half covers, and I’ve found the prices are literally identical to MX-5 part’s prices. MX-5 parts charge, minus postage, £440 odd for a single hub carrier, so I seriously doubt a dealership would charge 2X that price, at least given my own experienced of dealership parts prices v mx-5 parts prices. Maybe the person pricing it said it’s for one, but really it’s for two, as, after all, 2 hub carriers from MX-5 parts cost literally the same price as ‘your’ value.
Also, about a year or so ago, when having my car serviced in a dealership, I asked out of boredom how much the hub carriers would cost. They said approx £750 a side, inc labour.
SO something tells me someone who gave you the info maybe might not have been correct.
So based on the comments regarding dealer pricing I decided to confirm details for 2 main dealers local to me.
Dealer 1:-
So for the rear hubs they take 1.5 hours to complete so 3 hours for both sides with the labour rate of £156 an hour inc vat so £234 per side or £468 for the both sides.
For the parts you are looking at £883.67inc vat for drivers side and £855.12inc vat for passenger side
Total for both hubs and fitting £2206.79inc vat
Passenger side - £1089.12inc vat
Driver side- £1117.67inc vat
Dealer 2:-
The rear hubs cost £841.58 each
The price to fit them is £468.00
Total price £2151.17
My conclusion on this…is that I am DEFINITELY not going with a main dealer!!!
