Dude... THANK YOU! I just placed an order for a set because that is a wicked deal & my poor 7 is a restoration of a car that sat for a decade (aka all the suspension bushings are shot). Now that I went ahead and bought the lowers... I'm going to also grab a set of the Dorman upper arms as well. As an additional FYI for folks, Amazon had both the upper arms available as well for $20 & $10 cheaper than RockAuto each along with free shipping:



This means I am able to replace all my upper & lower arms for a little over $400.... Less than a single Mazda arm.

 

seems the ony rock auto option for uppers is doorman (not a fan of the company). any feedback on the phase 2 motortrends upper option? price and quality wise seem to be worth it?

 

That is some bullshit! What was the exact reason given? Because these control arms are made of "toxic" materials? But what about genuine OE Mazda parts or other similar parts you can purchase from your local auto parts store, those are suddenly okay?

 

They cancelled my order and refunded me. Claimed a carrier error and to order again. Idk

 

Weird... my order showed up in like 3 business days. I'll open it up and take closer pictures if anyone is interested.

 

Mine arrived in 3 days too..

 

I placed an order for the lowers as well. I also ordered a set of bearings/hubs that are on closeout as well for $8 a piece! Shipped from the same warehouse so I only spent $20 on shipping. Didn't need any of it but it never hurts to have spare parts for a great price. The link below is for the bearings if anyone is interested.

https://www.rockauto.com/en/parts/ap...ing+&+hub,1636

 

Got my spare mevotec LCAs the other day. It looks like the lower bushing is your standard rubber casting with a steel sleeve inside. I have never inspected the stock lower arms to see if that is the same style of bushing down there. Anyone know? IRP, what did you think of them?

 

Mine came in with a rubber bushing as well. I believe both OEM lower control arm bushings have a sleeve that spins freely. I plan on replacing both of the bushings with OEM when the time comes to install these control arms. At $80 it's still worth it, not sure about the original price of $160.

 

Ball joints on mine (LCAs) were REALLY tight. I had to tap on them with a small brass hammer to make them move...almost like no lube. I was going to try a needle fitting in my grease gun to get past the boot and see if they’d loosen any but not optimistic.

 

Good to know. Superpro or the like are probably a good idea if the Mevotec aren't OEM style. Wouldn't mind seeing an OEM LCA inboard bushing dissected to know for sure.

Most new balljoints I have encountered are super tight. From FEBI/Bilstein, Moog... whoever. When they press/swage them together in manufacturing they are compressing the races around the ball with some amount of pre-tension. Matter of fact Mazda has a spec on the tie rod ends for minimum amount of torque to rotate them - they're not supposed to move freely.

 

I ordered and received one each of the front LCAs; wholesale closeout inventory (right side) and regular price inventory (left side). It appears the closeout one is perhaps a knockoff of the Mevotech version, or maybe just a repackaged, imperfect unit that was previously returned; hence, discounted price. Plus, the ball joint was cocked in such a way that I wasn't sure how easy it would be to install. For peace of mind, I decided to return it for one from the "regular" price inventory, which seems to fluctuate daily.

The driver side LCA (from regular inventory) came unopened/packaged in its original Mevotech box wout issue. In short, I would avoid the wholesaler discount inventory, and instead be patient for a good buying price from the regular inventory.

 

You can just move the ball joint to the center by giving it a few taps with your hand or a rubber mallet. Did you get a chance to compare the two inner bushings to the regular priced LCA? I'm pretty sure its the same part and part #.