Complete Bushing Kits with Fitting Position Rear Axle

A complete bushing kit covers every position on the vehicle, or every position at one end of it, in a single part number. Rather than fixing one joint now and another in eighteen months, the whole suspension gets done at once.

It is also the only way a bush upgrade delivers what it promises, because a suspension is a system and half a system does not behave like a whole one.

Doing Half the Vehicle Leaves You With a New Problem

Fit polyurethane to one position and leave the rest, and you will notice less than you expected. There is a reason for that, and it has nothing to do with the parts.

Every joint in a suspension contributes to how much the geometry moves under load. Replace one bush and you have removed deflection at that pivot while every other pivot on the vehicle carries on flexing exactly as it was. The arm is tighter, the alignment still moves, and the vehicle still goes vague when you load it up.

It is worse than simply being neutral, because a fresh polyurethane bush holds its position properly while the tired rubber beside it deflects, so the two ends of the same arm now behave differently under the same input. What you feel through the steering is that mismatch, and plenty of people conclude the upgrade was not worth the money when the real problem is that they only did half of it.

Do the whole vehicle and the result is a different thing entirely. Every joint holds, the geometry stays where the workshop set it, the steering has a directness it has not had for years, and the vehicle responds immediately rather than leaning, settling and then turning.

The Labour Is the Cost, Not the Bushes

The economics reinforce it, because bushes are cheap and getting to them is not.

Almost every position needs the arm or component off the vehicle and the old bush pressed out, and that work takes the same time whether you are replacing one bush or every bush on the corner. Do a single position today and you pay for the teardown, the press work and a wheel alignment. Do the next one next year and you pay for all three again, having gained nothing at all for the second round of labour.

Fit a complete kit while everything is already apart and the cost per position collapses. One workshop booking, one session at the press, one alignment. For anyone paying someone else to do the work, that difference is usually larger than the kit costs in the first place.

It is also why a complete kit is close to free in labour terms if the suspension is coming apart anyway. If the arms are off for ball joints, the front end is stripped for new springs, or the subframe is down for any reason at all, the bushes will never be cheaper to replace than at that exact moment.

Bushes Age Together

Suspension bushes do not really fail one at a time in any meaningful sense. They have all covered the same kilometres, in the same weather, carrying the same loads, so when one has perished the rest are rarely far behind it.

Replacing a single position tends to mean chasing the noise rather than fixing the cause, and the next clunk usually turns up a few months later from the joint beside the one you just did. That pattern is how people end up doing the same job four times across two years and paying the labour every time.

It is especially true on a high kilometre 4WD or an older passenger car still running its original rubber. Everything underneath is the same age, and the original bushes were specified for a standard vehicle carrying standard loads, which is rarely what those vehicles are doing by the time anyone starts looking at them.

Restorations and Front End Rebuilds

Complete kits are the obvious choice on a restoration, and for reasons beyond simply wanting everything new.

On a vehicle that has been off the road, in storage, or driven very little for years, rubber has usually perished regardless of how few kilometres are showing. Rubber ages on a calendar rather than on an odometer, so a low kilometre car that has sat for two decades often has worse bushes than a working vehicle with three times the distance on it.

The front end of an older car is also the part that transforms most obviously. Fresh bushes throughout restore the steering precision and cornering traction the vehicle had when it was new, and on a lot of classic platforms polyurethane delivers more than the original rubber ever did.

The other argument is access, since a car that is already apart for paint, panel or mechanical work will never be easier to get into, and the labour to reach every mounting point is most of the cost of doing all of them.

Kit Levels and What Each One Covers

Kits come at several depths and it is worth knowing which one you are looking at.

A single position bush kit covers one joint, which is the right purchase when you have diagnosed a specific fault and everything else is genuinely healthy.

A grouped front or rear bush kit covers the positions with the most influence on how the vehicle drives, which for most repairs is the practical middle ground. You get the change without dismantling every last mounting point on the vehicle.

Complete vehicle kits cover every position the vehicle has. That suits an older car still on original rubber, a restoration, or a 4WD you would rather sort out properly once and then forget about.

Check each listing for exactly which positions it covers, since suspension layouts differ enormously between vehicles and no two complete kits contain the same thing.

When a Complete Kit Is the Wrong Purchase

Worth being straight about the cases where this is not the right spend.

If you have diagnosed one specific failure and everything else is sound, buy that one kit and keep the difference. If the arms themselves are bent, corroded or have mounting eyes worn oval, no bush will fix that and you are looking at replacement components instead. And if the vehicle is being sold shortly, the labour in a full refresh is hard to justify against what you will get back for it.

Complete kits also make far less sense spread across a year of weekends. Most of the value is in doing everything in one teardown, so working through the list gradually means paying complete kit money for single kit economics.

Planning the Job Properly

Set aside proper time for this, because a complete kit is not an afternoon's work, and rushing it is how mounting eyes get damaged.

Almost every position needs a press, and a correct diameter press tool is what stands between a clean install and a ruined arm. Check each eye as the old bush comes out, because a bore worn oval will not hold a new bush and means that component needs replacing rather than rebushing. Finding that out early lets you order the part while everything is still apart rather than after the job has stalled.

Fit the crush tubes and sleeves supplied, since the tube carries clamping load from the bolt and a bush fitted without one gets crushed the moment it is torqued.

Grease on assembly with a lubricant made for polyurethane rather than whatever is on the bench. Silicone and PTFE based greases are correct, while ordinary lithium and petroleum based greases can degrade the material over time. Grease the bore and the crush tube, not just one of them, because a dry bush wears its way to a fit and squeaks.

Torque everything with the vehicle on its wheels at ride height rather than hanging on the hoist. Whatever position a bush is clamped in becomes its neutral position, and one tightened at full droop spends its life twisted. With a complete kit that applies to dozens of fasteners, so work through them methodically rather than from memory at the end of a long day.

Book the wheel alignment for the same visit, because replacing this many bushes changes every angle the machine measures.

Find Complete Bushing Kits for Your Vehicle

Only one joint worn out? Repair it on its own with control arm bushes or sway bar bushes instead of a full kit.

Select your vehicle to see the complete, front, rear and single position kits available for it, and check each listing for the positions it covers. Every Nolathane component is backed by our warranty, a fitment guarantee and 60 day returns.