[vtl]

I've had these on my car for the past four months and wanted to give my thoughts on these bushings. Theres not a lot of information on these bushings. I first looked at M3 bushings but they're quite expensive with the terrible AUD and shipping costs.

These Nolathane bushes are 2 piece polyurethane and have anodized aluminium inserts. The finish is very high quality. The fact they are 2 piece means they are super easy to fit. I only had to drop my subframe about 100mm to fit them in and they press fit by hand! You do not need to disconnect the brake lines either which speeds up install.

The reason why im posting this in the Australian section is because for once, an aftermarket part is actually made in Australia! Means it is by far the cheapest option for a nice and solid subframe bushing. I bought my set from oziespares.com.au and only cost $162.98 shipped to my address. This is less than half of what the M3 bushing costs! Oziespares also sells a lot of other nolathane bushings and they most of the bushings for e90/82/92 suspension links.

The biggest annoyance is the install. The special tools required for this job are quite expensive and not worth it for a one off job. I ended up making my own tool from stuff I bought from Bunnings. An M12 threaded rod and 100mm PVC thick walled pipe, some M12 nuts and some scraps of wood were adequate for removing the bushings. I used a dumbell plate but you could easily use a block of wood with a hole drilled through it as well.

Ideally you need 2 diameters of pipes because the front bushings are a different diameter to the rear. I couldn't find a PVC pipe of 80mm that was thick enough. I used a reducer with my 100mm but that broke under the tension. Ended up using a block of wood to support the oversized pipe instead. Honestly its not as hard as people make it out to be, the bushings take a bit of effort to remove but they eventually come out with a spanner. Wasn't that difficult and certainly a competent DIYer can get it done in an afternoon.

Thoughts:
The bushings certainly lock down the subframe and you don't get the rear end nervousness under power. The car was very bad under power over bumps and oversteer transitions felt very awkward. Now that is all gone. NVH is about the same except when you go over fast sharp bumps. You feel those quite a bit more (I am still on runflats). It's nothing major but you do notice the added harshness of ride. It is obviously better if you're not on runflats. Certainly worth the upgrade for the money I spent.