aerohydro

Ok then. Let's hope the studs are made of some pretty amazing steel to take that torque without snapping.

The spec for the three nuts that secure the ball joint to lower control arm is 60Nm if the arm is cast steel, but 100Nm is the arm is steel sheet. Can anyone explain this? 100Nm seems like a crazy torque for a M10 thread. I have the pressed sheet steel control arms.

Sachs top mount kits are about half the price of KYB or Monroe (in Australia). Are the Sachs ones ok?

Thanks for the insight. I've skimmed the technical manual and it looks like most of the hardware is single use. I think I'll need a couple of new tools as well.

So scrutinising things a bit more, I have some movement in the top mount: https://youtu.be/7xSevRTdy0I The driver's side moves about 1/3 as much with the same effort so I reckon this is likely the culprit. Doesn't feel like free movement, but I suppose the rubber must have broken to move this much, right? ARB bushes are cracked, but seem pretty tight on the bar. It would be silly to not change both top mounts, right?

Nice, might try those next.

Thanks for the suggestions. Any idea if it's possible to change the anti-roll bar bushes without removing the subframe? Top strut nut is an interesting one, though the noise is dull so I'm assuming it's one of the rubbers.

I have a 2011 liftback, with 160k km/ 100k miles. I'm getting some noise coming from the front passenger corner. This is noticeable when on rough roads, particularly when cornering left, i.e. unloading the wheel in question. I've replaced sway bar links (front and rear) as I read that a fairly common problem. This doesn't appear to have done much, if anything, to reduce the noise. I can't detect any movement in the ball joint trying to shake the wheel by hand or levering around the joint with the car lifted. The strut top mounts show no movement when I bounce the car. The wishbone bushings are starting to crack but don't look super far gone. What would you look at next?