Control arm bushes, W210
 

Don't suppose anybody has changed these, and would know how long/difficult a job it might be?

Mine are looking a little bit worse for wear, and I've got a slight shimmy at about 60mph on the front wheels.

If you do a search under " LCA bushings ", you'll see lots of threads.
Just don't call them " bushes ", you may not find anything. ;)

A slight shimmy at about 60 MPH is not generally control arm bushings...

Your issue is most likely balance, tires or rims.


Have a great day.

Wheels have been balanced just a few days ago, tyres are pretty new Continentals, discs are brand new MB OEM, engine mounts brand new.

The bushings don't look great.

Look for uneven wear on the tires.

Thanks. Its a strange one, I drove 30 miles yesterday and 30 miles back and the balance was almost perfect.

I know that the wobbling can vary depending on the position of the wheels relative to one-another (ie long sweeping bends on a motorway/highway will make it better/worse), but it seemed almost perfect last night.

The back end doesn't change much, a constant thrum-thrum-thrum noise - but not an obvious thrumming, its almost as though the tyres have a blister but I know they're all fine. I'm pretty certain its not wheel bearings as I can't see bearings making the back end vibrate to any degree.

Weather permitting I'll inspect the transmission mount and the propshaft mounts tomorrow, to see if anything is amiss.

I beg to differ with comment above -
 

bad front lower control arm bushings can cause the vibration in the steering of a W210 at about 60 mph. I fought this problem on mine for several months until I insisted that dealer put car on rack and test bushings with large pry bar. They were very soft. Put in new arms/bushings after dealer broke bushing press trying to get the old ones out and problem was gone. That was 40K miles ago.

Depending on who did the balancing, it might still be out. The other source of thrum-thrum kind of noise is a tire that's out of round. A lazy tire shop balance person might not bother to look at that or fail to alert you to it. And the tire will still be balance-able even if it's a little out of round.

Its definitely not the tyres. They've been balanced at 3 garages, the problem persists. Even on new wheels.

Get the bushings in the front lower control arms checked. The amount of wobble you get will be temperature sensitive - on really cold days the rubber will stiffen up and the problem will be less noticeable.