some of my bushes are showing signs of wear which is showing up in the handling
I’ve been told that superPro poly bushes are the best as the sliders are designed to move inside the bush and so the suspension works properly (instead of the bush twisting in the arm
anyone any experience of fitting these bushes?
Marmite topic this…
Some say OEM are best, others that rubbers wears and is susceptible to oil penetration and so polyurethane is better. I fitted cheaper ebay poly-ones and noticed the difference straight away, more ‘feeling’ and less play. Its probably worth mentioning that the old ones were knackered so anything would have been an improvement. Not sure this is good advice but I’ve not suffered any problems as a result of doing it: I used a silicon grease to help get the aluminium sliders into the poly bush once they were in place (I tried getting the whole unit in at once and nearly lost a finger!) I’ve found this stopped the twisting issues some have had and also has helped reduce the squeeking you can sometimes get with polyurethane bushes.
Hope this helps 
P72
I’m about to do my bushes and have been looking in to this for the last month or so, there are pros and cons of each type of bush:
Bonded crush tubes (e.g. OEM or Poly Bush):
Free rotating crush tubes (Super Pro and most others):
For what its worth, I’ve decided that I’d rather fit the type with a bonded crush tube as I don’t want to have to relubricate periodically. This means either fitting Poly Bush brand poly bushes (as sold by MX5 parts) or OEM bushes. Given that the Poly Bushes aren’t cheap and I’ve heard a couple of complaints about them rotating in the wishbones because the bushes don’t fit as tighly as Mazda ones, I’ll be going for OEM Mazda ones. I’m going to see if I can get the Mazda competition bushes which are 40% stiffer than standard, but if not I’ll be happy with the standard ones.
thanx
let me know if you manage to find some osm comp bushes…sounds like they might fit the bill
I’m also leaning towards new bushes for my 1990 (52k) 5. The current, and I pressume, original bushes are past their best which must account for the crashy and sometimes wandering vaugueness of the car over bad pieces of road. I want to start with the anti roll bar bushes which I think will cure most of the problem. Where can you get standard/OEM bushes from? Polybushes seem to be the way forward but I don’t want to sacrifice ride quality. My 5 is my daily driver, it doesn’t get thrown around a track…
I’m not sure that poly bushes are the way forward if ride quality is important to you, though no doubt they will be better than tired OEM bushes. The main advantage of poly bushes are that they are made of firmer material that will allow more handling precision but at the expense of NVH (noise vibration harshness). I’m in a similar position to you and would rather have Mazda bushes - the roads round here are terrible at the moment.
You can get standard Mazda bushes from any Mazda dealer (though probably at a price), and MX5 parts also sell them (approx £380 for all). I’m currently talking to Guildford Mazda who have in the past managed to order Mazda competition bushes (though apparantly it took months to get them), and depending what they say regarding price and availability will probably order from them though I wouldn’t expect them to be much cheaper than MX5 parts.
If you only want to do the ARB bushes, they are fairly cheap so I would stick with Mazda parts for them - MX5 parts have them and I think Autolink also keep them,
OK, so I’ve ordered my bushes.
Guildford Mazda could have ordered the competition bushes but reckoned it was likely to take 6 months for them to arrive, so I’ve just ordered the standard ones as I really want them fitted in time for spring. With a discount the cost for the complete set of 22 wishbone bushes (ARB bushes would need to be ordered separately) came to £369 delivered which is only slightly cheaper than MX5 parts.
Whilst the OEM bushes cost a lot more than cheap poly bushes they are on a par with the cost of the well known brands. I’ve heard such mixed reports about the poly’s that I decided to go OEM because its not a job you want to have to repeat if the poly bushes are too harsh or if they don’t fit properly.