My 2003 is getting new upper and lower front control arms

[428PI]

I found out my right upper control arm has the rear bushing out and causing a knocking noise going down my rock drive. The lower control arm bushings set up a squeaky noise when below 50 degrees that drivers me crazy. All ball joints are tight though. I'll replace them next week and see how it goes. I ordered cheap ones off of ebay for around 300 bucks for the 4 arms and comes from Gardner, Ks. Rockauto would have been around the same price and local parts houses would have been more than twice the price. Anyone had bad experience with cheaper control arms? BTW: Just put in a 17 dollar lower balljoint (from Advance Auto) for my son's Mark VIII and wasn't impressed with difficulty installing but I have cheap ones in my MarkVIII for 50k miles and are doing just fine. His car was pulling when braking. Just about lost the ball joint before I found out what was going on. His car has 200k miles on it.

[Dennis45]

Pretty well every rubber boot and bushing in the front/rear suspension on my 04 are rotten and cracked. Rather than mess with one piece at a time I think I'm going to order this kit which covers pretty much everything. Reviews on this supplier are mostly positive with a couple of negatives over incorrect orders or missing parts. Has anyone on this forum bought from these guys?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/FORD-THUNDE...Ford#vi-ilComp

[BillyL]

I am faced with same issue as Dennis45. I am debating replacing the control arms as I do not have any steering issues. My preferred mechanic's shop quoted me $4500.00 to replace everything front and rear including the CV axles. I plan to put my bird on a drive on overhead rack later this week to do a complete under car inspection myself to see if the control arms and ball joints are indeed needing replacing at 45,000 miles. In the meantime I ordered a six piece steering and suspension kit w/ sway bar end links and rear torque tie rods off Amazon that I will install while on the rack. The kit is manufactured by TRQ and sold by 1A Auto for $149.95. The parts list cross-referenced with motorcraft parts numbers so should be a good fit.
I respect 428PI opinions as I think he is a solid mechanic basis past postings. Please do repost on your findings with the aftermarket control arms. Thanks in advance for posting here.

[428PI]

I personally wouldn't replace any joint just because of a cracked dust cover unless you drive in wet weather and snow. I'm only replacing my arms because they make noise. The joints will last a long time yet if you drive only in dry weather. The outer tie rods on mine are cracked as is most of the rear bushings. I'm more interested in loose bushings than ones that have only a tear on some rubber.

[edward301]

This last summer I replaced all of my suspension because the ball joint dust covers had all fallen apart, also some of the
fluid filled bushings were rotting, and causing squeaking or knocking noises.

I ordered everything on ebay, control arms with ball joints, and or bushings pre installed. New parts beside old parts
everything looked exactly the same. Took me 9 hours, and everything fit perfect, and works good as new.

Also installed new tires, and got a 4 wheel alignment. Car drives good as new, and alignment was right on.

My 02 Bird only had 12k miles, and always garaged, but suspension still rotted out.

[Tbear]

I just replaced the upper control arms on all four corners of my 007 with the cheap version from RockAuto. Also replaced 4 struts with KYBs (also from RockAuto). Lower arms were still tight, so I did not replace them. Cost for the parts plus shipping was a little less than $700.00. I paid a local guy $600.00 to install all the parts. Just picked the car up last night and wow what a difference. The car drives like new. A four wheel alignment today and maybe I'm done with this one for a while.

[428PI]

I got the front upper and lower arms replaced today. Just have to check alignment and drive it. It took me aprox 4 hrs working in my shop with 20 inches off the ground. The hardest part was getting access to rear upper arm nuts and lower arm bolt on driver's side. One has to remove 2 rack and pinion bolts and move slightly so the bolt can come out of the control arm. One thing I wished I would have done is got the caster-camber bolt kits for easier alignment later. The factory has slots on the front and rear lower arms (I originally thought only the back was adjustable but I was wrong). There are no washers to help keep the alignment. I ended up putting the wheels back on and without the struts in place jacking up the wheel to a certain height (I measured the height of tire to fender before doing the job) and tightening the upper control arm nuts and tightening the lower control arm nuts trying to keep the positions where they were originally. The lower strut bolt will have to be tightened after the weights is on the car. It will be hard to do because the sway bar links get in the way in front and in the rear the tie rod ends get in the way. One can only use wrenches to tighten it instead of impact wrench. The cheap upper arms were built in Taiwan and lowers in China.