I was under the '87 300D Turbo (W124, OM603) earlier today and noticed something strange in the front suspension. On both left and right sides, the rear bushing on the lower control arm doesn't look like the front bushing. Both fronts look the same and both rears look the same, but the rears look as if most of the rubber is missing. I did a lot of searching and there are many front suspension threads but none have pictures.

Here are some pictures of one of my front lower control arms. The first picture is of the front bushing, which looks fine to me. The remaining pictures are three different views of the rear bushing, which looks like a lot of it is missing. Is the rear bushing supposed to look like this?

I don't have any control issues or "clunking" sounds as described by others in the many front suspension threads of this forum. My indy worked on the car 28,000 miles ago in 2006 and replaced the left lower ball joint, the right tie rod, the steering dampener, and all four shocks (Bilstein). I'm sure if this was a problem that existed then he would have caught it. A 4-wheel alignment was done a year ago; if there was a problem I would think it would have caused problems for the alignment shop (but I confess to almost total ignorance of such issues).

SO: Is this a problem or is it supposed to look like this?

Jeremy

__________________

"Buster" in the '95

Our all-Diesel family
1996 E300D (W210) . .338,000 miles Wife's car
2005 E320 CDI . . 113,000 miles My car
Santa Rosa population 176,762 (2022)
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . 627,762
"Oh lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz."
-- Janis Joplin, October 1, 1970