Is my lower control arm toast? With Pictures!

AJ/FormS said
Mine have over 125,000 miles on, and altho I haven't looked at them for a couple of years now, the last time I was out in it, I didn't notice anything amiss. And they have never made a peep of any kind. Course our roads are smooth as glass,NOT,lol. No, I hammer them somewhat mercilessly. OK, used to.
But IMO, my LCA bushings don't work very hard, as I have pretty stiff shocks on them, and the poly strut bushings are the ones that take the beating. And because I am lowered, I kill the bump-stops. But I like how the car takes a set in the turns once it's on the stops. Remember this is a city car,not a racecar, so speeds are generally low.And I can get away with stuff.
I like how going in hot, rolls the car over onto the stop, and then it's all tire after that.And when she starts skating with the crappy BFGs, I lay on the gas pedal until the back starts sliding too. And then we're having fun! And no,I don't take passengers anymore. It's almost too hard to concentrate with all that yelling,screaming, and crying going on...
But mostly I don't drive like that anymore. I'm getting old and soft, and generally more considerate of other drivers, plus the tickets for this behavior are getting to be so high, that the fun is going right out of it.

Exactly. Properly installed and cared for the poly bushings should last a long time. 125k is more than I would have planned for, but I've yet to see a factory rubber bushing with more than 50k on it that wasn't shredded so anything beyond that is a bonus. And that doesn't even consider the improvement in suspension action.

Having a predictable car is a wonderful thing, and harder bushings with less slop makes everything more predictable. And being tire limited actually isn't a horrible way to set things up, as long as you know your tires. If the suspension is set up right with hard tires you should end up in oversteer, which is a lot of fun if you know how to drive it. And with that set up you could even have a second set of rims and tires if you wanted to do autoX on the side, slap on a sticky set of tires and you'd be set up right for that too. Then back to the hockey pucks for the street so you can smoke them up. :D Just gotta remember that will hurt your braking distances too so you have to leave more room. Which isn't a bad thing to do on the street anyway.