Hey everyone,

A buddy of mine has an 02 ford escape xlt. His rear most passenger side control arm bushing seems to be shot (is that called the lower control arm bushing? not sure). We took it to a mechanic and they said to replace that bushing it would be about 460. I'm wondering what the procedure is.

Basically the problem is that he was hearing a lot of knocking in the front end when he went over bumps.... Upon inspection we see that there is no clearance between the top of the bushing (metal part) and the truck. The other side has at least a centimeter of clearance. I'm guessing the one that has no clearance is bad and needs replacing.

How hard is it to do this. Is it a matter of removing that bolt that holds it in, and pulling the control arm away from the bracket, pulling out the old and pressing in the new and putting the bolt back in? My buddy seems to think he read that somewhere, however, i'm skeptical of his findings. Or do i have to drop out the whole control arm? The mechanic seems to think you have to pull the whole control arm, ball joints and all.. I'm not so convinced.

any help would be greatly appreciated. I've been looking for some DIY's on the subject but haven't found any and I dont have a repair manual for his truck.

thanks
Todd