I like how as soon as you took that lower ball joint bolt out you immediately said “yeah the rust belt guys gonna hate me” you aren’t lying haha

Well damn. I was told the bushings weren’t serviceable so I installed a new control arm. But at 10 years old in New York, it came out super easy.

Harbor Freight has a cup-bearing press kit I've used on 4 Subaru's bushing with no problem. Now if I was doing this every day or even a week, I might buy a more expensive one, but snap on $700, ah no..love the videos.

I live in the southwest desert, no rust or salt eaten metal here either, no hate from me. But I used to live in NY and Maine, it's terrible what the roads do to cars there

I just had 4 bushings, 2 control arms, 2 swivels, a rear spring, a/c relay, oil change and tire repair and this came to $2000. Sounds like the parts were cheap and most of the cost was labor. I know I got jipped but unless you have the tools and the know how, you have to pay to be safe on the road.

missing an important point, the thing that sticks out ALSO has to face REARWARD not only UP... you don't mention this, and it's super easy to swap for viewers

I had a mechanic in Tennessee agree to install the OEM bushings into the original front lower control arm on2009 Subaru legacy 3.0r. He managed to destroy the bushing mount, sourced the arms from O'Reilly's, which I only found out when I had to pay the bill. I'll give you a bargain price on 4 bushings and 2 ball joints. Didn't bother to save the Subaru arms to decide if I wanted them. I guess it wasn't good enough that it was a total gut of the front suspension. But wait, there's more! Installed 4 high end Continental tires, but neglected to tell me he isn't equipped to do an alignment. Pay for alignment with a picture of a sheared brand new sway bar end link, and caster off half degree. Rear cross chamber increased to .8 degree trying to force the front. Strut/spring aftermarket matched adjustable damping japanese set up. First look at front mounts, diagnosis... Missing conical washer. Failure on both mounts. Complete disassembly, inspection, replace, reassembly. I can't get back to North Carolina fast enough.

Comments are no longer below some twerp has put a minute comment section to the right of the screen rather than upgrading their system/database.

Pro Tip: Tap a little chisel in the gap of the ball joint bore, the ball joint will almost fall out.

The lack of rust is amazing, My Subaru came from Vermont and both control arm broke like a chicken wishbone due to rust.

I just completed this repair. Thank you so very much again.

Thanks for producing this video. Very informative and skillfully done. I might add that if you know of a local machinists' shop, a lot of those guys will press out/in the bearings for not that much money, so if you're a DIYer then you can skip that step and just have to worry about reinstalling the control arm. Cheers.

You are one of my favorite Subaru channels. Trustworthy and reliable! Appreciate your work!

WOW! I wish my Forester came apart that easy. NY winters are not easy on cars.

Great video... I opted for the whole control arm assembly from Rock Auto for around $65.00. New bushings and ball joint included. Snap to replace both sides. Love your videos, and saved a boat load from Snap-on.

Thank you for going through and listing out all the torque specs on all the bolts, my service manual didn't have the rear bracket-body and rear bracket support torque specs so this helps tremendously!!

Very much appreciate you taking the time to explain the bushing orientation details. Thanks!

I was going to replace my shocks and rims on my car and I had seen these are cracked on my 2008 wrx sti so now I have to do this first. Very informative video, thank you boss!

Thanks for doing this video. I was on vacation with the family and started getting a bad vibration when driving straight at highway speed. Checked the bushings and the smaller front bushing was toast. Couldn’t get into a shop anywhere for days and I had all the basic tools with me except a ball peen hammer. Hit up the parts store and got the lower control arm with bushings and ball joint and took on the project in the hotel parking lot. Took about 2 hours, the biggest pain was getting the ball joint to drop out of the knuckle even after letting some PB Blaster soak in over night.

Just did bushings on an A5 and damn that tool is better than a press and C clamp it’s like they had a baby