My front upper ball joints have a small amount of play, mainly the right side, so I picked up a new set of Dorman arms from Rockauto, as well as a new set of SuperPro urethane bushings.

The Dorman arms have what appears to be high quality pillow-ball bearings on the pivots. Although they are rubber isolated, the rubber appears quite thin and feels very stiff as well.
It looks like I'd have to destroy them to press them out, and I wonder if they'd be just as firm as the SuperPro bushings, and perhaps longer lasting as well.

Anyone else had experience with these arms?
Any opinions regarding whether I should replace the bushings or not are welcome.

Thanks

 

I own a chevrolet aveo. I replaced my lower control arms on that car with oem dorman control arms. The bushings they had were rubber. They didn't last at all, I could grab the wheel and move the wheel back and forth, I replaced mine with whiteline poly bushings and the play is now gone and it can hold the alignment and not eat through tires.

I suggest just swapping them out to the poly bushings as I have superpro on my rx7. I don't have any squeeks and the handling feels direct/crisp/concise.

 

Are these stock Mazda replacement items?

 

Yes.