It looks older because it is cover in road mank from local pit bing but this is less 6 months old the ball joint jumped out at one end rubber gaiter failed at other.

I am getting fed up with after-market replacement suspension parts from a major international brand (not QH) failing in a year or less of normal use.

Not just pattern parts...

I had a pair of front wishbone bushes from VW that failed within 12 months..... Apparently they had a bad batch..... Bit worrying really!

Yep I just did a complete overhaul of the front suspension on the Volvo, much of which had only been down 30k mls earlier

I have seen a lot recently --- wishbones, links and track-od ends.

The trackrod ends were either Delphi brand or very close rip-off copies, they were stamped Delphi on the bottom of the ball joint cup , the rubbers had disintegrated and allowed dirt into the rod end.
I think the ARB links may also have been Delphi but they are not marked as such.

The quality of replacement void bushes have been a problem for a while.

[Edited on 9/2/12 by britishtrident]

Try to get actual genuine parts if at all possible.

You can get cars on 100k with original suspension bushes which are in better nick than replaced aftermarket ones after 10k. To give you an idea, our 1999 Yaris is still on the original bushes including ARB, and it's on 150k miles, without a single knock etc. My passat however is rapidly becoming very wooly but it is on 200k+ miles.


A tip for VAG cars is if you go for Lemforder for most of them, they will actually be the exact same parts as VAG use (you can tell because the VAG part number + logo is actually just ground off the casting).

Ironically, Delphi supply OEMs for a number of components so I don't really know why their service parts have such a bad reputation...

A friend of mine does airport runs in a Seat Alhambra and the anti roll bar drop link bush failed on one side at 170,000 miles so he decided to do both sides. Less than 20,000 miles later they both needed doing again so he took them back and complained and got a new set free but still had to fit them again.

Little experts in china can copy but use rubbish steel. How about using a set of bottom adjustable arms on a ford front strut per rally supplied by a well known "rally design"er in kent . U gets what u pays for, cheap is cheap!

I put QH drop links on the fabia and the gaiters split in 4 months, had a new set under warranty, split in 6 months and failed so I left them knock for a year couldn't be arsed to change them again.

Ended up with VAG ones at £57 a pair trade as opposed to £18 a pair from the factors, still fine 2 years on.

Pattern drop links are not worth the box they come in as far as I'm concerned.