Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Suspension rear control arm question

Ok here's the story,

yesterday I took my car in for an alignment and new tires. Belle Tire the car on the alignment rack and found that both of my rear control arms were bent. The Belle Tire guy said it looks like someone put the car in the ditch and hooked chains around the rear control arms to pull it out. The ford dealer said they could get me new ones for 80 bucks for the pair. The Belle Tire guy suggested I go down to u wrench it and pull some used ones of a junked contour. what do you guys think, new or used?

I would go new, u never know what the used ones have been through.

I would prefer new, but I would not be afraid of wrecking yard parts for these as long as the car had no significant rear end damage.Other than getting bent, these things don't have much that can go wrong with them. You should be able to easily spot any damage.

I bent one running over a deer - to fix the problem if you caster isn't more than 5 degrees out take a 2x4 or 4x4 chunk of wood and put it on the arm and hit it with a sledge hammer until allignment machine shows they are in spec. I gave the allignment guy permission to try that first b-4 I would go and replace it...... try it!

Go used. The pair of them will be maybe $20-30 in a junkyard, and the only thing that can happen to them is they bend. New ones will bend just as easily as used ones, so there's really no sense in spending the extra cash. Trust me, I've been through this situation. Twice. If it happens again, I'll be buying the tubular ones.