My car suffered from sweaking over bumps from the nearside, so I took it to my local, trusted, mechanic and asked him to have a look at it. I indicated that it was probably the ARB bush.

He told me that it's the nearside lower arm rear bush that needs replacing. However when I took the car to the Skoda dealer to order the parts, the guy who works there had a look and said it's definitely the ARB bush that needs replacing.

Back I went to the mechanic to present him with this information. He proceeded to tell me that both needed replacing, and whilst I watched from outside jumped in the car and started jumping it, by that I mean moving off and then stopping immediately. I could see the nearside front wheel moving across horizontally when he did this. He said this showed that the lower arm rear bush needed replacing.

The mechanic is willing to replace just the ARB bush to see if it solves the problem, but I'd prefer not to pay two sets of labour charges and get him to repalce the lower arm rear bush if it does need replacing.

Is he right?

Bushes aren't very expensive are they? Will it cost a lot more to have both replaced rather than just one?

What is sweaking?

The wheel will move forward and aft thats the way it is designed to move. The bush will need replacing if it is split or splitting. Cupra bushing will limit the forward and aft movement but not eliminate it as it is supposed to move a bit.

Why not just replace all the bushes?

One labour charge,peace of mind.

It's not PC to call them 'mechanics' these days.....

Nine months later, I've finally fixed this problem. The mechanic replaced the lower arm rear bush and welded a fabricated bracket to replace the ARB bush.

What kind of bracket?

Sorry, bracket is the wrong term. Instead of replacing the ARB bush, he fabricated a replacement from a metal washer.