1991 Ls400 Upper Contol Arm

[godpossessed]

Well - the old girl has 232K miles now and the used upper control arm that I put on the front passenger side 2 years ago is sloppy now. Is there a better choice than trying used again. The OEM is ~$500 as you all know. What about aftermarket.

thanks

Mark

[godpossessed]

found em

http://www.arnottindustries.com/part_LEXUS...d46_gid421.html

thanks

[blake918]

I just put the Arnott upper arms in my '99 a couple weekends ago. So far, they have been great. They cured an assortment of clunks and a squawk! :D I absolutely wasn't going to pay $800 or $1,000 for a set of OEM arms. These aftermarket ones were $210 out the door, and they come with a lifetime warranty. They look and feel just like the OEM ones that came out the car. Worst case (assuming the stigma about aftermarket parts is true), even if the arms lasts 7 years instead of 10, it's well worth it, especially since it takes much less than an hour to change each upper control arm.

[godpossessed]

Same here - I got the arms on in about 40 min per side. The quality seemed fine and the handling is nice and tight.

[Ross W.]

found em

A wonderment: do the air suspension cars have different upper control arms than the standard cars? And did Lexus change the arms for the '93 - '94 cars? My car is in dire need of the front (and rear) suspension overhauled.

[godpossessed]

found em

A wonderment: do the air suspension cars have different upper control arms than the standard cars? And did Lexus change the arms for the '93 - '94 cars? My car is in dire need of the front (and rear) suspension overhauled.

The part# for the '93-'94 cars is the same. You could call Arnott and ask about the air vs. standard suspension differences.

[dasha1]

Same here - I got the arms on in about 40 min per side. The quality seemed fine and the handling is nice and tight.

Do these aftermarket control arms make the ride tighter and stiffer than the OEM's? Can you feel any difference?

[godpossessed]

Same here - I got the arms on in about 40 min per side. The quality seemed fine and the handling is nice and tight.

Do these aftermarket control arms make the ride tighter and stiffer than the OEM's? Can you feel any difference?

I don't know what it was like when it was new (I bought the car in '01 with 53K miles) but the ride is smooth with these arms. They seem compliant, but controlled. I guess the bushings are similar in hardness to OEM.

[dasha1]

I don't know what it was like when it was new (I bought the car in '01 with 53K miles) but the ride is smooth with these arms. They seem compliant, but controlled. I guess the bushings are similar in hardness to OEM.

Thanks, that's helpful, and tips me toward buying the Arnott arms. I haven't used any aftermarket parts yet for any repairs, but I may go with the Arnott control arms because the OEM upper control arm costs are ridiculous. I spoke with a gent who was selling a single new OEM UCA on Ebay for about $330 and he apparently can get Toyota/Lexus parts at dealer cost. He said that dealer cost for the upper control arms for a 99 LS400 is $311.58 each. (I think it's the same part for a 95-00 LS400) Coincidentally, the price on parts.com is is $358.32, exactly 15% higher than the purported dealer cost. But then parts.com adds another 15% for shipping and another $2 for a handling fee and you're up to about $415 apiece.

If I install the Arnotts, I will have two OEM control arms that could be refurbished and later put back into the car if the Arnott's fail. Anyone know of an entity that would install new bushings and a ball joint in an old control arm? I found a website (www.lextreme.com/Lexus-Control-Arms.html ) for someone who apparently refurbishes the bushings but not the ball joints and he still charges $200 each, not including shipping. That price seems high, and I would not be interested in replacing the bushings and not the ball joint.

[RDM]

The upper ball joint is not available, period. No one makes a replacement unit, and removing a good one from another damaged or bent arm would more than likely damage the ball joint. Hence the need to replace the entire arm.

The old arms you remove are therefore useless unless you have a buyer who has bent or broken theirs and just needs a cheap fix.

[VBdenny]

When I bought my car 7 or 8 years ago, I had it checked at Lexus. At that time they told me my upper control arms were "weak." I said uh huh and worried about it for awhile. I still have the originals in and haven't changed a thing and I have to tell you, the car drives great, handles great, has no clunks or vibrations, stays smooth right up to a buck, and the tires don't wear. I have had plenty of cars and you know when a ball joint is failing, because you notice several of those things. I'm leaving them in until I can see a reason to change them. No way would I pay that much for OEM. I don't understand why Lexus feels they have to rip off their customers. If I owned a Lexus dealership, I would have a couple sessions a month when owners could bring their cars over and chat with the technicians about them. Pretty idiotic huh?

[dasha1]

Well, I bought the Arnott upper control arms and had them installed in my 99 about 6 months ago. They improved the handling a little and some noises went away, which was expected since they replaced the 11 year old factory original UCA’s. But, I had some problems with the car wandering a bit at high speed (80+ mph) in crosswinds. It also bothered me that I had already spent a fortune on suspension parts, all of them Lexus OEM, and then compromised with aftermarket parts for the UCA’s.

So, after lamenting about the issue for several months, I bit the bullet and bought some new OEM UCA’s. I got one of them on eBay for $270 and bought the other at Sewell for a little over $400. Ouch!!!

Well, the OEM UCA’s are noticeably better than the Arnott’s. The car is now softer, smoother, and quieter over bumps. I took the car up to high speed and it seems more stable in strong winds. But the most noticeable difference over the Arnott arms is when cornering. For example, I have two floors of parking garage to circle around to get to my spot. I usually go pretty fast when entering or leaving the garage and I noticed that the car is now easier to control around the corners. Yet, at the same time, the car seems much smoother, silkier and softer when making the turns. It’s like riding on air when making a turn. (No, I don’t have air suspension.) So, I now have smoother and softer turns and more control all at once.

Since I still have the 6 month old Arnott arms that were just removed and also still have the original 12 year old OEM arms that the Arnotts replaced, I took a close look at the parts side by side. The ends of each arm have an outer cylindrical housing, an inner cylindrical sleeve and an annular bushing therebetween. The 12 year old Lexus rubber bushing is a little thicker and adheres tightly to the cylindrical sleeve. By contrast, the Arnott bushings had separated a bit from the sleeves or may have been like that since new. I put a screwdriver shaft in the sleeve of each arm and moved the handle of it as though it were a joystick. Interestingly, I could move the handle with unlimited degrees of freedom with both bushings, but the Lexus bushing allowed far less movement than the Arnotts. It’s like this with all of the bushings I compared. It seems that Arnott did not quite copy the Lexus bushing design and allowed more movement in the sleeves.

The Arnott arms are a whole lot cheaper than OEM. But, it seems that there was more engineering that went into the Lexus arms than meets the eye.

Anyway, I thought my perspective might be helpful since I doubt anyone else would be crazy enough to buy a pair of aftermarket arms only to replace them 6 months later with OEM.