Hi all just thought i would give a word of warning to anyone thinking about fitting the front and rear Eibach ARB kit to their octavia that it aint as simple as it could and should be for the money you are paying! I am really dissapointed, not with the quality of the bar or the bushes but the fact you dont get everything you need to fit it.

While replacing some subframe bits on the octavia im repairing i thought i would fit the front Eibach ARB (fit the rear another time and easy enough). This is sold as including a fitting kit, which is basically the bushes lol. Basically i work on a decent bit of VAG stuff so was aware that the standard ARB's for the golf, leon and octavia come complete these days with the bushes in the metal bracket and on the bar.

They are not supposed to be split and have a nut welded ontop of the bracket and inbetween the 2 parts as shown below. To split the bracket to fit the new bush the easiest way is to grind off the welded nut (i phoned Eibach direct and they said that i should drill the rubber bush out which would take ages to do! lol)

This picture shows the bracket split after i ground the top nut off, but the welded nut inbetween the the top and bottom plate is still there at the moment.

This one shows a split bracket and also one that i have ground the nut off but have left it to show how it goes together.

Once you have ground both nuts away you will be left with the top and bottom bracket smooth and then fit the new bush and will need 2 x 13mm (10mm thread) nuts and washers to replace the bolt you have ground off. Below shows the new bar and bush with the bracket loose fitted.

Below is a picture of the old bar (one bush left on) next to the Eibach one with the brackets fitted and the existing bolts and replacement nuts and washers

Once this i back together then you need to fit the new bar and slide the lower bracket in and then bolt through while holding the new 13mm nut ontop (engine side) the subframe and once the bolt starts to tighten you wont need to hod the nut any longer.

The most annoying thing about this for me is that i am lucky that i have access to the tools to do this job, but most people wont have a metal grinding blade lying about to use and also there is no instruction to drill out the bush and it would take ages to drill the bloody things out!

Dont forget you will be paying minimum £270 for this bar set and so why dont they put the metal brackets in the kit! Its not as if its a rarely used setup with it being shared with the golf and leon B5 platform and so for the small cost of making the brackets would save the customer a lot of time and effort. The work involved just to get the car ready to change the ARB's is enough for anyone to so why should we be made to modify a bracket?

Im not taking anything away from the quality of the bar or bushes as seems top notch, but its not right to sell a kit without telling the customer what sort of work this change will involve. Imagine stripping your car down on a Sunday morning to find that you cant get a grinder and the nuts to fit it and will end up with either having to refit the standard or have the car off the road until its done. Cheeky G*ts if you ask me.

Rant over :p

PS anyone planning this job and need a bit of info or help give me a shout, always happy help where i can.

Edited 18 September, 201015 yr by dainott

Now if only you had asked

I had the same problem when i got mine done about 18 Months ago and used a similar solution to you.

Haha you b45tar4d

Shocking aint it and most people wouldnt think of grinding the nut off and would spend a week trying to drill the bush out!

mate, how heavy are the eibach bars in comparison the the std though, so have you only fitted the front bar then. hows the understeer then??

Edited 18 September, 201015 yr by janner_Sy

Nothing much in it weight wise as far as i can remember but didnt really check the weight between the 2 before fitting. Yea only the front one on at the moment as the car is a rebuild project (check fl front end post and gonna see if i can get the title changed as using it for my build). Will be fitting the rear one before the car goes on the road which will even things up. Ive never driven the octavia so didnt know what it was like before fitting the ARB's but will get Rob who has just joined the forum and works with me to take me out in his FL when he finally gets it in the next week or so.

I think these work better if you have both (which i have)

The rear is a doddle to fit so don't let the front put you off

Cheers and yea had a look on the rear fitting mate and seems easy enough.

Wouldnt say the fitting of this kit put me off doing it again on the front (it aint a nightmare job) and would know what to expect, its just suprising how much so many companies are willing to charge us for parts to mod our cars and cant be bothered to develop them properly, especially when the bits needed would cost about £5 max for them to produce and its such a popular chassis! Annoying

cant believe they can charge that much for something that doesnt fit!

P1ss poor effort by Eibach!!!

I thought these would be TUV approved, in which case how do they get away with such a DIY installation. I'd be furious if I'd stripped the car and then had to do all this work!

Is the rear an easy swap or do you have to muck about with that too?

No the rear is straight forwards as the brackets are not fixed to the bar like on the front.

Yea i wasnt best pleased and will stay clear of Eibach in future unless they are the only option i have. Just hope this helps someone who is planning the change and i was lucky that the car aint on the road yet and i had access to what i needed to get them fitted. Imagine trying to do this on a Sunday and needing the car monday morning! Your stuffed!!! If they were £100 i wouldn't complain but they aint!!

Yea i wasnt best pleased and will stay clear of Eibach in future unless they are the only option i have. Just hope this helps someone who is planning the change and i was lucky that the car aint on the road yet and i had access to what i needed to get them fitted. Imagine trying to do this on a Sunday and needing the car monday morning! Your stuffed!!! If they were £100 i wouldn't complain but they aint!!

thy are all the same mate. iirc BSH re the only ones who supply brackets. eibachs are also cheaper than the other options available.

As above. Most of the kits are the same, I thought it was just Neuspeed that supplied new brackets, but BSH too then.

Rather than grinding off the nut, I drill the other side to remove the collar that holds the nut onto the bracket. This means you can use the nuts again and they lock into the mounts.

Pretty sure the Autotech FARB has the brackets with it too.

Annoying when they do this. At least if they flagged up the issue earlier it would at least be *some* consolation - but yes, you usually find out when you're some way into the changeover

Nothing much in it weight wise as far as i can remember but didnt really check the weight between the 2 before fitting.

am I right in thinking all the factory bars are hollow? I guess the Eibach are too, if you have no use for the old one ie scrap, any chance of finding the inside to out side diameter? I'm trying to get some grasp on the relationship between hollow and solid bars, there seems little gain weightwise in tubeular bars unless it's a race car, but they are also more highly stressed like for like compared to solid cheers Nic

am I right in thinking all the factory bars are hollow? I guess the Eibach are too, if you have no use for the old one ie scrap, any chance of finding the inside to out side diameter? I'm trying to get some grasp on the relationship between hollow and solid bars, there seems little gain weightwise in tubeular bars unless it's a race car, but they are also more highly stressed like for like compared to solid cheers Nic

believe me, the eibach bars i had were massively heavier than the stock bars

Apologies for the massive bump, but this guide has saved me a load of uhm'ing and ah'ing.

I'm just replacing the bushes and keeping the arb standard. Can you confirm that the nuts you used are m10 thread and did you replace any of the subframe bolts or just re use the old ones?

Thanks.