Sway Bar Bushings

[Jon Wehrenberg]

With all the reports of issues with bushings and the number of owners that have experienced problems I truly believe Prevost has a design issue. IFS was all the rage when it first came out, but with the history of service problems something is wrong.

Greg asks about the weight which is a valid question. I know from Rob Russell that he loads to the axle limit, but tries very hard to get his drivers to not exceed those limits. I also know his coaches are dropped and raised as necessary to keep them level, just like our coaches. I know he gets over 400,000 miles out of his bushings.

Until Gary just posted his bushings were only 3 years old I was leaning towards age, but apparently that is not the issue.

I remember when Prevost made an excellent product and then stood behind it.

[Donnie_M]

I see this ALL the time! I have a coach at Josams as we speak with 40k miles getting new sway bar and upper control arm bushings. The upper sway bar bushings are completely gone...as in not there. Both front and rear sway bars look like this. This coach is an 05. The bushings on the lower are rubber and split real bad. The common thing I see with all of them is the threaded pin the bushings ride on are ALWAYS rusty and galled. It's just like the 365 tires. If the coach sets, the tire has a greater chance of coming apart in 15-20k miles versus one that gets drove like passenger buses and get 100k out of them. You guys should look at those upper control arm bushings really close on the IFS coaches.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

I wonder if there is a pattern to the bushing issue? I am not affected, but if I were I would gather information from companies running Prevost seated coaches and gather information from motorhome owners. I think this problem is serious enough that there should be a recall and a permanent fix.

Our cars have had similar front end designs and you almost never hear anyone replacing A arm bushings.

[Jerry Winchester]

Okay, here is the report from my trip to Prevost.

We got the coach up on the lift and the sway bar bushings were indeed in a bad way. Then the technician says, "If the front ones are this bad, I'll bet the back ones are in the same shape". So we go to the rear (I didn't seem to remember there was a sway bar in the back) and sure enough, they are worse.

So we go back to the front and he says, "These control arm bushings are okay." So we go look at the driver side and notice that the tire on that side has some abnormal wear on the inside of the tire. Remember, the first sign was the abnormal wear on the outside of the pass. side tire. Upon further inspection, he notices that the lower control arm is slightly bent. Looks kinda like someone put a jack under it to try and lift the coach.

Okay, then I say, "Well why would the right tire be worn if the left lower control arm is bent?" We get to looking at the upper control arm on the right hand side and it has, as the technician says, "A whole bunch of shims" on it or at least more than he typically is used to seeing.

Anyway, he replaces all the sway bar bushings, the lower control arm on the left side, both front tires and then they align it. And while it didn't drive badly before (other than the sway bar banging around), it really drove well on the way home. Very smooth. And I don't know if the sway bar bushing wear might manifest itself as a bump steer problem, but given the crappy state of the roads in and around Dallas, I would say that having all the suspension components working properly made the trip home much more enjoyable.

bus parts..jpg

[Kenneth Brewer]

Settin at Prevost, Nashville waiting till the morning when they are going to install new Sway Bar bushings. I'm going to go with the OEM rubber style instead of Neoprene unloess someone can tell me that the plastci are better than rubber. I had plastic but they crumbled and fell out. Unfortunately I have no idea how old they were but the bus is an 02 with 65K miles. Anyone have experience with rubber vs Neoprene?

This might(?) be a case of a bad batch/manufacturer rather than the proper material's normal performance. And it may happen occasionally with 'rubber'/neoprene as well. Quality control (or shelf life?) may be the culprit as well. I don't know but I will try and find out. I haven't looked at mine yet.

[dmatz]

I have about 60k on my 02 the front sway bar bushings were replaced last year and the rears this year. They certinally do not stand the test of time on our coaches. Apparantly the miles do not appear to matter either. The local charter company with 50 plus prevost stock them so that leads me to think it's not designed for the use it is getting. They are not listed on the lubrication and service schedule from prevost either. An annual check on them appears to be in order.