Our Mark 4 golf has started making a knocking noise from the rear when a rear wheel goes either into a pothole or over a speed hump.

I am reliably informed that this is caused by wear in the rear axle bushes and has now become a comon reason for MOT failures on VAG group cars which use this bush(1J0 501 541C).

The Fabia and Octavia also use this same bush (1J0 501 541C) and I wondered if anyone had changed these and can advise on whether the axle has to be removed completely from the car or is there a way of changing the bushes with the axle in situ (Without disconnecting the brake lines, handbrake cables,springs and shock absorbers etc).

I have purchased the correct tool to change them and intend to replace them shortly.

I have found a set of pictures for doing this job on BMW's (which use a simular bush) and is helpful.

Anyone any advice on whether removing the axle is the only way?

Dougal

Job done yet, Dougal?

Hi Denis

Sorry I hadnt responded earlier, I had missed your post.

I completed the bush change replacing the originals with Power flex bushes.

I took the back axle off completely and removed the old bushes by pulling them out using the puller I had bought. This action left the bush metal outers still in the axle.

I then cut the metal outers with a hack saw and used the puller again to fully remove the outers.

The only real problem I encountered was bleading all the air out of the brake hydraulics after replacing the axle.

I had missed the bleed n1pple fitted on the master cylinder. Once I bled the air from this n1pple, the brakes came good.

Overall it took about 4 hours to complete the job excluding the brake bleeding problem which a suffered with for a week following the bush change.

Hope this is information is useful for anyone else doing the bush change

Dougal