Sorry to bring these up again I know we have had a lot of threads but not being very technically minded I am totally confused. I understand it is good to replace the the front rear facing bushes (console bushes?) with cupra 160pd solid ones. If this is being done does it make sense to replace the front forward facing bushes with powerflex ones or is there little value in doing these as well, if it all has to come to bits is it best to replace them all? Also I've heard about replacing front ARB bushes also - any value in doing that at the same time also? Now in terms of the rear suspension is it worth/advisable to uprate any bushes there?

Finally I must confess to being rather confused as to where the bushes are and which bit of the suspension and why they are important. Sorry to be so daft and I hope someone with more intelligence than myself will enlighten me!!!!! thanks

no bushes need to be replaced at the rear

the Cupra bushes are a worthwhile mod , the wishbone/lower arm mounts into these at its rear pivot point

you could change the front wishbone/lower arm bushes but these generally don't wear, these bushes are on the front pivot

the ARB bushes can be changed also , but make sure the plastic collars are ok on the ARB , if cracked or missing a new ARB will be required

The garage I got some recent work done at were suggesting replacing the front ARB with an eilbach one thing is im not sure it is much thicker than the standard one I seem to remeber the fabia's is thicker than it's ibiza counter part? Perhaps I should just wait and if the standard front ARB falls to bits replace it with an eilbach one. sounds to me like replacing the bushes on the standard bar might be a waste of time if the rest of it is ribbish! My car is 55 reg I heard a rumour that skoda modified later bars with metal collars fingers crossed mine is one of those!

I think that the wise move would be to change the (front) TCA rear bush for the Seat Ibiza Cupra one when either:- you get annoyed by the way the front wheels wander fore/aft and/or make lots of rubbery noises or when get advised by your garage or when the MOT issues an advisory note on them. Probably your best bet as to who to get to fit these "non-standard" bushes would be a VAG indep specialist - car needs four wheel re-alignment afterwards, so this is one other reason to try to minimise the number of times you end up paying for this work (the Cupra bushes should last a lot lot longer). ARB bushes, if you are not hammering your car or posing just wait until your garage or MOT tell you they need changing. Shame about the rear beam bushes though, I'm sure some enterprising person will make a suitable replacement available - then convince some of us that we must get one - but you might find something more useful to spend your money on (hint ebay!?!).

Oh, just one last thing, I am sure that you will find "model for model" the Seat Ibiza mainly has a "thicker" ARB than the Skoda Fabia - it makes sense as Seat is the "sporting" marque within VAG.