Hi, the rear shock absorber bushes got picked up as an MOT advisory (64 plate 110XS with 108,000 miles, roof tent and lots of dog/SAR kit in the load bay). As shocks are pretty cheap in the grand scheme of things it make sense to me to change them instead of faffing around with the bushes. What's the view on a replacement - standard LR has obviously done me well so far.

Is it the top or the bottom? The bottom ones are a piece of cake. The top ones are more of a pain. Diesels Lives Matter

Definitely worth while replacing the shocks, you will get a mix of what brand people recommend. I have old man emu shocks and they have been great and definitely cope with a lot of additional weight in my 90.

I would also suggest you look at going to a pin to pin shock on the rear as well, Gwyn Lewis/IRB developments have a good kit for this.

Personally if the shocks are working I would just replace the bushes, they really don't last very long (typically I replace my rears annually just before the MOT, because they only last about 25k miles). I don't mind a tenner or so for bushes at this regularity, but see no point ditching perfectly good shocks unnecessarily.

Having recently done this, how do you tend to get the bushes in? I did mine the other week as the old ones had totally collapsed, but the new bushes were one piece, hourglass shaped with a steel sleeve. Ended up chopping them in half rather than try to force them through the eye!

I was looking at the rear pin mount brackets from D44 the other day too.
What are the advantages? Is it just deleting the top mount captive bush for easier changes only. I’m presuming so. Diesels Lives Matter

miker wrote:

Having recently done this, how do you tend to get the bushes in? I did mine the other week as the old ones had totally collapsed, but the new bushes were one piece, hourglass shaped with a steel sleeve. Ended up chopping them in half rather than try to force them through the eye!

That was my plan except with grease and a vice. Ran out of time so chopped them and will monitor for next time!

The cone-shaped bottom bushes go with annoying frequency on later vehicles especially on rough roads like we have here. My record so far is 14 miles from new to the bush literally hanging out - non genuine bought as there were no genuine available on the day I needed them. Didn't bother with another set of the cheap ones!!

I now usually fit polybushes to the lower rears and genuine everywhere else - I don't use poly anywhere else, but they last much much longer on the bottom rear.

Don't underestimate the difference a new set of shocks will make even if you think the other ones are working fine. I just replaced mine because changing bushes in a rush I cross-threaded one of the lower nuts and fked it up, and I'm glad I did because changing for identical Genuine new ones the difference in the back end of the vehicle over rough ground is very noticeable. The originals have just under 40k miles from new (2007) but quite a lot of that has been off road and on rough roads, felt fine if you pump them up and down but were clearly getting tired. ---
2006 Defender 110 SW 300Tdi • 2011 Ford Ranger XLT crewcab • 2015 Mitsubishi Shogun SG2 • 2015 Defender 110 Station Wagon Utility TDCi

I'll second that. I changed the shocks on mine for Genuine new ones at about 56k and the difference was really noticeable. I think the problem is that they deteriorate so slowly that it's really difficult to notice when they're worn. Darren

2013 Defender 110 USW XS
2013 Discovery 4 XS

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