I decided to upgrade to the M3 upper and lower control arms. After many months of research, I went with the TRW M3 control arm upgrade kit. This kit comes with the upper arms, lower arms, headlight leveling sensor, and all the required hardware. The arms also have the upgraded M3 monoball bushings pre installed. With the new M3 control arms I was able to jump from the maxed out -.6 degrees of front camber, all the way to -1.8 degrees. After getting the car dialed in, I took it out for a drive on some windy roads. Every single complaint I have had about the car is now gone. The turn in feels fantastic and far faster than it was before. Less steering effort is needed to place the front wheels exactly where you want them in a corner. Upgrading the control arms on a non-M E9X to the M3 versions is one of the best upgrades you can do for the money.
Owner reviews for control arm
From ECS' site, Vaico is their budget friendly supplier. I used ECS' stage 3 front suspension rebuild kit, which included Vaico control arms with bushings
I fitted a couple of Meyle control arms on a friend's BMW a few months ago and was impressed with them, particularly for the price, they came with replaceable ball joints too.
The same happened to my S80 after 17 years and 150'000km. The mechanic said he was impressed the original ones held up for so long.
Over the last 6 months I have replaced all front suspension control arms with new TRW arms.
I still like the original bushing and not the solid one. I like the idea of having my control arm play well for the up and down motion thus making the car ride better (kudos to vw engineers). my original bushing lasted around 8 years (not bad) and by that time I could hear some squeaky sound (no more squeak now) so I replaced it with the same type of bushing but not the expensive vw part.
I absolutely think that you could get an allroad and use it for daily duties (mine is an 02 2.7T auto) but there are some things you should know and take care of. There will always be something that needs to be looked at.
I bought Meyle HD lower control arms, they seem to be ok quality wise. Clean welds, thick paint so should resist corrosion pretty well. They come with reinforced ball joints and both bushings in place.
I got 2 Dorman control arms from Factory Motor Parts (FMP) in MOOG boxes. I found out when the customer brought his Dakota back for noise. Found the bolts holding the ball joints snapped and one side was held in by on out of three. The other side all the bolts were loose. Had them send a second set. I tried to torque the bolts this time before install. They would not torque and began to strip. FMP tried to tell me it was accidental. TWICE? Nearly killed my customer.
Last year I ordered Moog upper and lower control arms for my truck and I was extremely disappointed. One control arm came with zerk fittings, the other three did not and I had to tap threads for them. Called Moog and was on the phone with them for hours as they told me it wasn't their fault and that the distributor I bought them from are to blame.
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