I can not decide if I should do the bushings only or get the new supra arms so I will have the new ball joints. 115k on the car and not abused. No popping sounds just squeeks a little going over bumps. I have the new tein basics in the box sitting in the living room, just delivered today,look really nice BTW.
Does anyone know of any problems using the supra arms? I heard that they were the exact same arms as the sc400 but I haven't seen them.


Anyone know what a fair labor price is to install the arms and coilovers?

 

Buy new arms only if you need to replace ball joints, otherwise just spend $156 from carson Toyota and replace the bushings. Remember, the Supra is japanese sports car while the SC is a cruiser. Replacing suspension parts from a sports car may make your handling better, but also may make the ride stiffer. The parts are interchangeable but are not exactly the same. Depends on what your goal with the car is. If you want it to still ride like a Lexus and you use it for cruising and saily driving just replace the bushings, if you plan to mod the hell out of the car and you have $200 to spend on EACH control arm then go that route. Again, depends on your goals.

 

I am looking for the comfy ride.I don't want to feel every bump in the street.
I think I am going to put on the tein basics with new bushes all the way around,inc.sway bars.

I just don't want to put new bushes on and then have a bad ball joint in a tear or two. The ball joints seem fine now but I have to wonder how long these joints will last. Also looking at the labor cost of doing bushings VS arms. It seems to me that the labor would be cheaper to just put the new arms with the bushes already pressed in. So while the new arms are more expensive than the bushes how much do you really save after labor. Total cost new arms + labor vs total cost new bushes + labor.

 

depends on who does the labor, check around. My SC has 187k miles on it and no ball joint issues whatsoever, but I don't drive my car hard either. Just FYI...

 

I didn't want to spend all that $ either, so I made my own bushings on a lathe(same type material as on Lambo Diablo), and the ball joints went out a year later @ 130K miles, but that gave me enough time to save up for new Supra control arms.
My labor was basically free since I did it all myself, but if I was going to be paying someone to to the work, I'd think hard about getting the control arms, and avoiding premature tire wear, redoing it all again,...
Mikeloc is right, the ride does get a bit stiffer, about 60% of the difference between stock SC and solid bushings.