Norm Peterson

I'm sure that the big 3 also know what bushing stiffness will be more pleasing (less displeasing?) to the majority of their customers and sufficiently durable for them. These days, suppressing NVH appears to be a bigger priority than accurately maintaining suspension geometry over the greater braking and cornering potential that today's cars enjoy over their predecessors.

Just for one example, back in the 1960's and 1970's, Fords and Chevvies didn't use hydraulic-filled suspension bushings like many cars today have, including those big rear bushings in the front control arms.


FWIW, two or three years ago I was advised by my local Ford dealer's service people that the bushings in my car's rear lower arms were starting to crack. Which I wasn't terribly surprised to hear, given that car's exposure to lots of hard cornering.


Norm

hobbie1

I have a 2013 GT - 1 1/2 years old. Mine was repaired per a TSB at 14,129 miles last August 13th 2014. Today I have a little over 20,000 miles on the Stang and it is 1 year later since repair. Sunday we are out riding around town, it is 102 degrees here in Northen California. Clunk and creak at every low speed bump and hump. I dread going back to the dealer as the last one that replaced the control arms totally screwed up my alignment to the point that Les Schwab spent 2 hours getting it right. Seems given all of the pressure on the manufactures right now that Ford should step up and fix this mess. All i heard all day was clunk and creak. Going to the dealer tomorrow to see if they will try and repair again. Is there an aftermarket set somewhere to kill this problem once and for all? Funny thing , I have a 2014 RAM 2500 Cummins, they have had a clunk problem for months with the cab fluid based mounts. I had the truck in a number of times for that clunk. They just came out with a new body mount - just had them installed and for the last 3 weeks no clunks. In the case of the RAM it would start within a day or 2 after being in the service dept for the repair. Like the Mustang warm weather made it worse. The fluid was leaking out of the old mounts and it appears this was because the bolts were too long that mounted them from the frame to the cab. In the case of RAM I had a customer advocate calling me every week till the truck was fixed - maybe RAM is a little more customer focused than Ford? If this keeps up I may make a change to something else. Anyway if there is an aftermarket solution, that is probably worth a try. Just looking for a fix for pretty much a perfect car.

Derf00

Not in a bunch but it's a pet peeve of mine when people make wide sweeping comments that come across as fan-boy without any factual information to back it up. It's then an ill-informed opinion is all.

For reference I worked in parts and service for about 15 years so your observation about cars mfgs/engineers should know better is something I get. To try and single one brand out though is what I consider ignorant. They all have problems.

Cars generally last well over a 100K these days. Back in the day it was few and far between.

Anyways, yep, cars have been around for over a century, but in the quest to make things cheaper, higher volume, and in some cases, throwaway, they sometimes cut corners. The only difference between the GT500 control arms and the Stock GT control arms IS the durometer of the rubber (the caveat is that the size of the ball joint stud is also increased on all mustangs from 2008 up vs 2005-2007).

Here's a couple of case-in-points about poor engineering decisions for what I consider no brainer stuff.

Chevy in general from what I've research but - My son has a 07 cobalt, His A/C temp actuator has gone out. In order to access the damn thing you have to remove the entire center console and dash... One would think that a part like that should be able to be accessed from under the dash or behind the glove box like with a ford and most other car mfgs ..Nope, both GM and most Chrysler products have them buried. 7-8 hours of work to replace.

Another Chevy thing...same car, tranny solenoids and valve body, should be accessible under the tranny pan right? Nope, rip out the drivers side suspension, remove the tranny mount and hopefully get enough room to remove the side cover on the tranny... 7-8 hours of work and guess what, the shift solenoids are known to have a high failure rate at low miles.

Not exactly geniuses designed the layouts for easily servicing components that can and do fail (Observation). No, instead I think GM did that on purpose to make the car more likely to be replaced/thrown away (opinion).

Every car mfg has issues and one would think that with nearly a century of car engineering in the bank, cars wouldn't have TSB's or Recalls or high failure rates in certain components at low miles because to the average person it's common sense but, that's not the case.

artsvettes73

Very well said. And I agree