Can you tell me how to shop for Powerflex bushes on your website?
Buying suspension bushes online can seem a little daunting. Hence, we have simplified the shopping experience withinour Powerflexshop.
1) Select the range of bushes you require: Road Series, Motorsport(Black Series) or Heritage Collection [more information available below]
2) Locate your car make and model
3) View the diagram to identify the Powerflexbush (orbushes) you require
4) Use our handy drop-down filter tool 'DiagramPosition' on the left of the screen. Filtering by diagram position is the easiest way tolocate the poly bush that you need. (Tip: if you are unable to view the filter tool on your device, you can also view the diagram position in the product subtitle)
5) To learn more about any product simply click the productimage to be taken through to a more detailed description which will include OEM part numbers (when available), the number of bushes in the pack and any important product notes.
6) Use our quick add to cart feature to add bushes to your shopping basket
7) When you are ready proceed to checkout
Can you tell me about the PowerflexLifetime Warranty?
Powerflex are proud to offer a Lifetime Warranty on the entire range of products we manufacture.
We have taken this decision because of the confidence that we have both in our products and also in the way that we have handled any warranty issues in the past.
We have never had a time period based warranty policy because we have always treated issues that customers have had as an opportunity to learn.
Where a problem has occurred due to incorrect fitting, we have always asked ourselves if the reason for the error was due to poor fitting instructions.
When we have had a part failure we have tried to understand if the part was being used outside of its design parameters, perhaps on a race car running slick tyres. In cases like this, should we be offering a specific motorsport compound?
Like all manufacturing we have had the occasional material quality issue and in these cases we have always replaced parts without question.
So now we have decided to formalise our open and honest policy and boast about it!
We will replace any Powerflex product that any customer in the world is unhappy with for any reason.
The only conditions that Powerflex attach to this Warranty are:
- This Warranty applies to the original purchaser when purchased through an authorised distributor only. Proof of purchase may be required.
- That in the event of an issue you contact us directly at and give as much information as possible to enable us to help you. This will involve giving us details of the installation and any changes made to the car, photos of failed parts and the installation.
- Warranty is restricted to the replacement of the supplied goods, but no consequential loss (e.g. carriage charges, garage labour costs, vehicle recovery, car hire, loss of earnings, etc.) from any resulting problems.
- Any parts used for motorsport/competition purposes or part numbers ending ‘BLK’ are excluded from our lifetime warranty.
What we ask in return is that anyone wanting replacement parts contacts us directly and sends as much information as possible which will help us determine the reason for a problem.
Can you tell meabout Powerflex Bushes?
Powerflex bushes are a type of suspension component designed to replace the original rubber bushings found in a vehicle's suspension system. These bushes are made from a high-performance polyurethane material that offers several advantages over traditional rubber bushings.
The primary purpose of suspension bushings is to provide a flexible link between various suspension components, allowing for movement and absorbing road vibrations. However, rubber bushings can deteriorate over time due to factors like heat, oil exposure, and general wear and tear. This degradation can lead to increased suspension play, reduced handling precision, and a less comfortable ride.
Powerflex bushes, on the other hand, are engineered to be more durable and provide improved performance. Here are some key characteristics and benefits of Powerflex bushes:
Durability: Powerflex bushes are made from a specially formulated polyurethane material that is resistant to common factors that degrade rubber, such as oil, chemicals, and heat. This makes them more durable and longer-lasting, resulting in improved suspension performance over time.
Enhanced Performance: The stiffer nature of polyurethane compared to rubber provides several performance benefits. Powerflex bushes help minimise suspension play, reducing unwanted movement and improving handling precision. They also offer improved stability during cornering, resulting in better grip and reduced body roll.
Increased Responsiveness: Powerflex bushes provide a more direct and responsive feel to the driver. The improved rigidity helps transmit feedback from the road surface more effectively, allowing for better control and a more engaging driving experience.
Customisability: Powerflex offers a wide range of bushing options to suit various vehicle makes and models, as well as specific suspension components. This allows enthusiasts and professionals to tailor the suspension characteristics to their preferences, whether it's for improved performance on the track or enhanced comfort on the road.
Easy Installation: Powerflex bushes are designed (in most applications) to be direct replacements for the original rubber bushings, making installation relatively straightforward.
Why choose PolyurethaneSuspension Bushes?
Polyurethane has been around as a specially designed plastic for over three decades. However recent breakthroughs have now made it possible to engineer unique characteristics into this impressive material. Suspension bushes are amongst the most immensely stressed components installed on a car. They endure tremendous strains and in the most formidable of conditions without maintenance or lubrication.They are made from a rubber compound containing natural products which break down with age. It becomes softer and more pliable, unable to restrain the forces placed on it less and less. This in turn allows more and more movement of suspension parts and offering less control over the suspension geometry. This results in faster tyre wear, unstable braking and poor handling. This is the single biggest reason you can instantly tell the difference driving a three year old car compared to a showroom new one.
However even new cars will benefit from POWERFLEX bushes because of their superior design they offer much more effective control of the suspension components to a much greater extent than normal rubber items. With the technological advances in this material it has been possible to overcome the common problem associated with harder bushes which is increased noise. By correctly engineering the polyurethane compound, bushes can be made 25-30% stiffer than new rubber items but with exactly the same noise absorbing properties. POWERFLEX bushes make sense.
- POWERFLEX for prolonged tyre life.
- POWERFLEX for improved performance.
- POWERFLEX for increased safety.
Powerflex bushes are now available in 3 great ranges: Road, Black & Heritage
Road Series – for Road and fast Road use.
POWERFLEX Road Series bushes improve your cars’ road holding and chassis performance by controlling the amount of unwanted flex in the suspension. This means the suspension is doing what it is supposed to. It means your tyres have greater contact with the road at all times, therefore, improving safety and performance. Correctly formulated polyurethane is as good if not better at noise, vibration and harshness suppression when compared to worn rubber. Our Road bushes offer Prolonged tyre life, Improved performance, Increase safety, Greater cost-effectiveness.
Black Series – for Track and Motorsport use.
POWERFLEX Black Series bushes are manufactured using our Black 95 Shore A compound to provide maximum control of chassis geometry. They are designed for the Track, ready to Race and are engineered to be the best. This compound can be up to 80% more resistant to load than standard rubber and 25% stiffer than our purple performance material. If your requirements are purely for the ultimate in handling and chassis performance then Powerflex Black Series are unique, offering the most precise and accurate alignment for your chassis.
Heritage Collection – for Classic and Restoration use.
POWERFLEX Heritage Collection bushes are manufactured using modern-day materials with properties biased for the road. These dark grey coloured bushes will improve any collector’s car, whilst retaining the same standard appearance of a rubber bush. Our new range speaks to the growing demand for quality replacement parts that have an aesthetic in keeping with’ the look of the original part and restoration project as a whole whilst carrying all of the performance and longevity benefits offered by Powerflex’s unique blend of polyurethane. Going a step further than simply using the same material and durometer of hardness for all of our parts, each part location has its own shore designation to ensure improved suspension performance without discomfort or vibration, all of which ship in our new ‘Classic’ Dark Grey colour suitable for all road-based applications.
Potential customers often tell us that they do not feel equipped to fit new parts and that it is a job for professionals. The Powerflex team work very hard to ensure bushes are developed, in general, to be fitted by a home mechanic without hydraulic presses and special tools. The removal of the old parts is often harder than the installation of the new.While Powerflexbushes are designed, in the main, so that they can be fitted without special tools sometimes difficulty of removing the old bushes means that if you don'tfeel you have mechanical experience or tools to do it then we recommend you ask a friend or garage.
The following video shows how to remove old bushings and a typical Powerflexbush installation
POWERFLEX BUSH INSTALLATION VIDEO
FITTING ONE PIECE, DOUBLE FLANGED BUSHES
1. Take out the factory rubber bush from the arm, clean any dirt and rust from the bore in the arm. Use a round or half-moon file to get rid of any sharp edges from around the bore of the arm creating a small chamfer. Failure to do so will cause impairment to the bush when pressing in.
2. Check the stainless steel sleeve is not in the bush at this point. Apply some washing up liquid to the outside surface of the bush to aid fitting. Press the polyurethane bush into the arm at an angle so one part of the lip is already in the bore of the arm, when the bush is then pushed in the rest of the lip will follow. Make sure the lip has fully popped out the other side of the arm.
3. Apply some of the supplied grease to the bore of the bush and insert the sleeve into the bush.
4. Re-fit the arm to the car and tighten all hardware to all manufacturers recommended torque settings.
WILL POWERFLEX BUSHES FIT NON-GENUINE PARTS?
Powerflex design all bushes using highly accurate measurements taken from genuine OE parts as fitted to the vehicle from new and as a result our parts may not fit aftermarket suspension components if they differ from standard. With this in mind if you do have Non-Genuine suspension arms etc. fitted to your vehicle, we would always advise checking sizing prior to ordering.
APPLICATION OF GREASE
The grease supplied with our bushes in thesachet is our own formulated PTFE/Silicone bush assembly grease. It’s to be used to optimise bush performance and durability.
It is best to assemble our bush kits into the suspension components using a small smear of this long lasting grease. This can be applied to the bores and outer flanges of all bushes and to the centre sleeve. Any excess grease visible once assembled can easily be wiped clear.
What will your bushes do for me?
POWERFLEX bushes promote better road grip and chassis performance by managing the amount of undesired flex in the suspension which increases as rubber bushes degrade. Controlling flex results in your suspension is doing what it was designed for. Your tyres will have greater connection with the road at all times which is great for both safety and performance. Unlike older technology modern day polyurethane does not result in increased noise and vibration when properly manufactured.
But I only have a normal family car?
Sometimes customers ask us what is the point in fitting Powerflextechnology to a standard car. But here we think our bushings make perfect sense. You can fit them and forget them, they wont wear out. Tyre wear is improved as tyres are correctly contacting with road. Handling is better and most importantly of all safety is improved when tired rubber units are replaced with correctly formulated polyurethane.
Should I choose Road Series or Black Series Bushes?
It is quite simple really. If your car is driven on the road we recommend choosing Road Series and if it is a used predominantly for competition choose Black Series. Even if your car is a fast road performance model you will still benefit from the better handling and increased grip that your new polyurethane bushes will provide whilst maintaining comfort for everyday driving. It doesn't matter if your car is a family runabout or fast road. If it drives predominantlyon the road then we would recommend choosing road series. Unless, you have a modern day classic then you might prefer the more subdued looks of our new heritage range. Just like road series but grey!
Can the Road Series be used on ‘Tuned’ cars?
Our Road Series parts would be absolutely fine for ‘Tuned’ cars and Fast Road use. They offer the right compromise between performance and compliance, something that most people require from a daily driven vehicle. Yes, fitting our Black Series parts is possible and has and will be done by many people, but naturally by going even harder with the bushes you are compromising the comfort of the vehicle and therefore you may experience a harsher and noisier ride
I want to know more about Black Series?
BLACK SERIES are the ultimate performance motorsport, track and race bushes offering the most precise and accurate alignment for your chassis.
Black series bushes are:80% more resistant,25% stiffer and engineered to be the best
The stiffer black series bushes are made from harder compound and are designed for motorsport use only. You might experience extra noise and vibration if your car if fully kitted out in this stiffer compound. These kits are easily identified on our website as the part numbers are the same with the BLK suffix.
Caster, what is it?
Pretty much always positive on everyday cars, caster it is the pivot angle described by the front suspension.
The tyre contact point is behind the theoretic pivot point. Like the contact point of a shopping trolley caster wheel is behind the pivot point.
Positive caster gives straight line steering stability and causes a self-centring action to the steering.
Increased positive caster has a number of benefits including: improved dynamic negative camber in turns, greater high speed stability, better road feeling with more steering information through the wheel.By increasing the caster on a road car we can improve cornering grip as on most cars the effect of caster is to increase dynamic camber throughout cornering. What about camber? Older race cars ran positive camber to reduce steering effort and due to their narrow tyres it did not have the effect that it would on cars with modern wider tyres. Whilst we can think of no reason for needing positive camber now, reducing negative camber can be very important. We manufacture a number of parts to allow camber to be modified on suspension systems where no modification is possible, and it is not always about increasing camber. Increasing negative camber may be beneficial to improve front end grip and turn-in on a track biased car. However it is not always about performance. Camber adjustment can be needed to correct an imbalance from side to side to reduce tyre wear, and lowering a vehicle can increase negative camber to the point of increasing tyre wear. (A very common problem on the VW Transporter, solved with these bushes) We manufacture a huge range of parts for many different cars that allow camber adjustment or correction. From If you are ordering camber bolts don't forget our handy little magnetic camber gauge too.
Put simply, negative camber is most celebrated on modern cars and is where the bottom of the wheel is further “out” than the top looking from ahead and compared in the vertical plane.
Signs of Camber excessive wear:
The inside edge / outside edge will show considerably more wear than the rest of the tyre.
Camber wear can be caused by: suspension misalignment, a bent strut, a dislocated strut tower, a weak or broken spring, a bent spindle, or collapsed or damaged control arm bushings. I
How to measure for Powerflex Anti-Roll bar bushes?
The measurements provided for Powerflex ARB mounts refer to the diameter of your sway bar. Some bars vary in diameter along their length therefore it is often advisable to measure near where the bush sits. A verniercaliper is the best way to measure your bar. However, if you donthave access to a vernierthen you can use a closely fitting open-ended spanner to gauge the measurement.
Measuring for anti-roll bar bushes with a Vernier Caliper:
Or by placing the open end of the spanner over the ARB and to the side of the rubber bush, you can gauge the size by simply moving up and down on the size until you find one that fits closely.
How to know which wishbone bush to choose for my 3 series E46 BMW? Hence,if you have any model E46 apart from M3 or Xi/XD then you will need either the PFF5-4601 66mm or the PFF5-4601-60 60mm. You can simply check the size of your housing to see which you need for your car. But we understand thatif you are not carrying out work yourself then measuring might not be so easy. Most standard E46 models do use the PFF5-4601 so if you are unsure then buy that one. We offer a 30 days no quibble returns policy if you get it wrong - all we ask is that you return products in same brand new condition as we send them out.
Powerflex make four basic numbers for this bush.
PFF5-4601 [66mm] - designed to fit the 66mm aluminium bush mounting bracket (that is most standard BMW models)
PFF5-4601-60 [60mm] - designed for the earlier models with 60 bore mounting
PFF5-4601M3 [60mm] -fits BMW E46 M3 models only
PFF5-4601Xi [60mm] - fits Xi/Xd E46 models only
What are the different Powerflexbush colours and all those shore ratings about?
Our bushes are colour coded to make them easy to identify. Take a look below to learn more about the shore rating (durometer) and their general applications.
– Used for Universal exhaust hangers and diesel engine mounts.
Yellow 70A– Normally used for engine mounts, differential and subframe mounts or areas where the bush needs extra absorbing properties and movement.
Purple 80A– Our most frequently used material. This is used in most areas of the suspension and provides the perfect mix of performance and compliance.
Black 95A – Our stiffest material. This is used for our Black Series range and sometimes on normal road vehicles where the vehicles suspensionneeds us to use this hardness of material i.e. in areas of high stress and load.
Grey*- Used specifically for our Heritage Collection. This can be any of the durometers mentioned but will always be the same as the equivalent part from our Road Series i.e. if it’s Purple 80A in our Road Series, it’d be Grey 80A in our Heritage Collection.
I have purchased road series bushes so why are they black? Have I been sent the wrong bushes?
Some areas of the car's suspension are under extra stress and load. Even on normal road vehicles sometimes the suspension requirements will mean that a black shore compound is best suited. In these instances the bushes in your pack will be black in colour. Road series bushes are traditionally associated with purple colour but in fact they can be yellow, red, purple or black dependent on where they are to be fitted on the vehicle and the task that is required of them.
On our Road Series and Heritage Collection kits, we can use a mix of all 4 of our materials. During the development stages, we test the original bush and see what the requirements are in terms of strength and movement. At that point, we then decide which of our materials would be best suited. We don’t believe in a one material suits all rule. Manufacturers will do the same and will use different shore rubbers, however, it’s not as noticeable as all rubber bushes look visually similar.
How do I know if my suspension bushes need replacing?Suspension bushes are among the most stressed components on a car. They not only have to deal with every bump in the road and vehicle vibration they also suffer from engine heat, friction heat, contamination on the road/from the vehicle and lack of lubrication. With age rubber bushes deteriorate, they may become dry and cracked and lose their noise/vibration absorbing properties. Bushings are located on suspension / chassis components where metal arms or parts make a joint. Bushes act to avoid the stress and friction of metal surfaces grinding on each other.
Bushes are generally located on the car's ball joints, control or wishbone arms, engine or transmission mounts, shock absorbers, steering rack, tie rod, rear beam mounts, rear axle and other suspension to chassis components.
Typically a worn bush may become noisy on uneven or gravely roads, it may make a clunking sound on corners or when braking, the vehicle may suffer vibration and the steering may feel sloppy or less precise. The bush may lost its noise and impact absorbing properties. Just like ageing human joints where cartilagehas worn down resulting on with bone on bone, metal on metal can cause excessive wear and tear.
Unlike rubber bushes, polyurethane bushes do not deteriorate with age and are impervious to heat and contamination. You can fit and forget them because they won't wear out.
What do engine mounts do?
Engine mounts are the parts responsible for keeping the engine of a car firmly attached to the chassis. They perform the function of mounting the engine and absorbing engine noise. Tired or degrading mounts can result in disproportionate noises from engine bay, excessive vibrations or engine movement. This can result in stress on other components on the motor.
Unlike rubber mounts Powerflex polyurethane bushes do not degrade over time and secure engine thereby providing a fit and forget solution to the problems caused by factory mounts.
Powerflexhave a range of engine mounts such as these standard replacements for MG ZT through to these clever adjustable engine mounts for BMW
Can I use your Black Series bushes for gravel racing?
The Black Series parts are fine for Tarmac/Gravel rallying where there’s not too many lumps and bumps, but for forest rallying where there are likely to be jumps and very uneven road surfaces etc. then we’d recommend having a little more compliance in the bushes and so our Road Series would be better suited.
How do I know whether my car has a fixed beam or multi-link suspension?
Fixed Beam vs Multi-Link Rear Suspension MQB / VAG
Fixed Beam Suspension:
A single solid axle connects both wheels, leading to shared movement across the vehicle’s width. Ideal for durability and cost-effectiveness.
The fixed rear beam is often used in lower powered models however it is important to check as some models such as S-Line may have sports suspension options and be fitted with multi-link.
Multi-Link Suspension:
Comprises multiple arms allowing independent wheel movement, enhancing handling and comfort. Preferred in performance cars for superior driving dynamics and generally found in sporty models such as the GTD, GTi, R or RS
Key Differences:
Wheel Independence: Multi-link allows independent movement; fixed beam does not.
Complexity and Cost: Multi-link is more complex and costly than the simpler fixed beam.
Performance: Multi-link offers improved handling and comfort.
Spot them visually: Fixed beam shows a single axle across, while multi-link displays several arms connecting each wheel to the chassis.
