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Why do most people rave about polybush dog bones?



  2003 Clio 172
As title really. Had one fitted to my car when I bought it and I hated it. Vibration was ridiculous. Gone back to a standard one and the difference is night and day. Car feels smoother, no horrible vibration and just a whole lot nicer. Am I in the minority? ?
 
  406 V6, Race Buggy
Usual case with stiffer mountings, it's a bit of buyers fever (I paid money, it must be great!), and a bit of the normal thing when people fit stiff engine mounts, etc (It's like a racecar, it's fine!) :D
Plus if you're replacing a knackered bush rather than a new OE one then the vibration difference might not be massive.

Rarely do you get a review 6 weeks later about their fillings falling out ;)
However, they do need a few weeks to settle in as the material creeps in the housing from the preload (all polybushes creep over time, nature of the material)
 

Raceface_13

Staffordshire
ClioSport Area Rep
I loved mine (evol dogbone and vibra engine and gearbox mount) even as a daily driver. Its now not my daily and using a e46 beemer, got in the clio the other day and it feels like WW3. Suppose its what your used to
 

R3k1355

Absolute wetter.
ClioSport Club Member
As title really. Had one fitted to my car when I bought it and I hated it. Vibration was ridiculous. Gone back to a standard one and the difference is night and day. Car feels smoother, no horrible vibration and just a whole lot nicer. Am I in the minority? ?

Nope, for road use they're bloody horrid.
Normal rubber mount is much nicer, but when worn they slop all over the place something terrible.

Someone needs to make a mount with stiffer rubber rather than poly.
 

massiveCoRbyn

ClioSport Club Member
  Several
I drove my Clio daily with Vibratechnics and a Powerflex black dogbone. BecauseHero.

It was bloody awful in reality but, when I drive it now, I love how silly it feels.
 
  406 V6, Race Buggy
Nope, for road use they're bloody horrid.
Normal rubber mount is much nicer, but when worn they slop all over the place something terrible.

Someone needs to make a mount with stiffer rubber rather than poly.

I looked at making more road-biased ones but there's so many people making dogbone mounts I don't think there's any openings for more products to sell well!
 

davo172

ClioSport Club Member
  TCR'd 172
Just powerflex the big bush and keep smaller one OEM that's what I did all the benefits none of the vibrations.?
 

R3k1355

Absolute wetter.
ClioSport Club Member
I looked at making more road-biased ones but there's so many people making dogbone mounts I don't think there's any openings for more products to sell well!

Yea, at £30 for the Evol one it's hard to convince people to buy something else.
 

adamlstr

ClioSport Club Member
Mine had just Vibra mounts, standard dogbone. The dogbone does very little when the engine and box are properly mounted. ?
 

Darryl_1983

ClioSport Club Member
  RB 182 Cup
I had an early Evol Dogbone and removed it after a couple of weeks.

Since then had the powerflex inserts in both the dogbone and engine, and it was much better, very little extra vibration, and not even noticeable on the move.

I've got a dogbone insert to add to my new 182, and will be adding in the engine insert when i get around to replacing the upper mount. As i like the extra stiffness it provides.

I've read a few post recently about them being over torqued and that can cause the extra vibration, so it could have been an installation issue...
 
I love poly'd dogbones for two reasons. It has eradicated a loud and annoying noise/vibration under hard acceleration, and improved the gearchange noticeably too.

Considering it's a quick job to fit it and cheap to buy, I'm amazed people would prefer the standard ones. Yes there's a little bit more vibration at idle but then these cars are no Mercedes S Class anyway!
 
  2003 Clio 172
I love poly'd dogbones for two reasons. It has eradicated a loud and annoying noise/vibration under hard acceleration, and improved the gearchange noticeably too.

Considering it's a quick job to fit it and cheap to buy, I'm amazed people would prefer the standard ones. Yes there's a little bit more vibration at idle but then these cars are no Mercedes S Class anyway!

See this is the weird part, mine is the exact opposite. Gear change is far smoother with standard mount and much less vibration. Polybush was horrendous. Even the whining noise from my dying gearbox is a lot less now. I can't explain it ?
 
See this is the weird part, mine is the exact opposite. Gear change is far smoother with standard mount and much less vibration. Polybush was horrendous. Even the whining noise from my dying gearbox is a lot less now. I can't explain it ?

Yeah that is strange! Usually the standard rubber bush gets soft over time and causes the issues I mentioned above. I replaced the bush with a powerflex one and I immediately noticed a huge improvement. It completely got rid of the knocking on acceleration so for me it’s the best mod I’ve done. All I can think of is that they take a bit of time to bed in and soften slightly? Or maybe the condition of your standard Renault one is so good that you haven’t noticed the difference?
 
  2003 Clio 172
Yeah that is strange! Usually the standard rubber bush gets soft over time and causes the issues I mentioned above. I replaced the bush with a powerflex one and I immediately noticed a huge improvement. It completely got rid of the knocking on acceleration so for me it’s the best mod I’ve done. All I can think of is that they take a bit of time to bed in and soften slightly? Or maybe the condition of your standard Renault one is so good that you haven’t noticed the difference?

Possibly, it is brand new from RPD.

It's certainly transformed the car though, so I'm happy ?
 
Possibly, it is brand new from RPD.

It's certainly transformed the car though, so I'm happy ?

That’s the main thing tbh mate. I don’t mind what mod I put on the car as long as I can feel the difference. So far I’ve gone with a number of recommendations off cs.net including tyres, brakes, suspension, bushes, air filter, exhaust etc and i’m very happy with all of them. So many people can’t be wrong, and it’s worth the membership money alone for that!
 
  406 V6, Race Buggy
There's a big difference from going from a knackered/cheap ebay special mount to a poly, compared to going from a brand new decent rubber to a poly, I'd say.

And this is from someone that ran a daily with solid engine mounts, and rose jointed and bearing'd suspension - there wasn't a rubber or poly bush in the car...
 
  BMW 320d SE
I’ve had my Evol dogbone on my 182 for about a year now. Initially, it was a bit more noisy at low revs, mostly when pulling away. However, that soon died down as everything settled in. Now I don’t notice it at all and it doesn’t make any annoying vibrations. Most importantly of all, the gearstick doesn’t flop around like a limp dick as you go on and off the throttle.
I think the trick is not to tighten the bolts up too hard when fitting them.
One of the best improvements I’ve made to the Clio to be fair.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
  Land Rover
My 182 has a polybushed dog bone and after reading posts about it being harsh for road use l fitted an OE replacement.
To be honest there wasn’t much difference and l have put the polybushed one back on.
At first it seemed smoother with the OE dog bone but then my missus said it was actually worse in town driving.
 

Brigsy

ClioSport Club Member
  T.Turbo
My Kangoo has a purple polybushed dogbone (powerflex ?) Rest of the mounts are new oem mounts and no extra vibrations seems quite decent and engine feels tight when on and off the throttle.

However a couple of years ago i filled the stock dogbone mount on my 1.5dci with pu sealant and give it a few days to go off. It made a massive difference to engine movement but the vibration was horrendous was rattling the dash on idle - assumed it was so bad due to diesel !? Put up with it for a month and changed it back to new oem renault dogbone.
 
  Clio RS 172 2002
Just powerflex the big bush and keep smaller one OEM that's what I did all the benefits none of the vibrations.

I just put purple Powerflex bushes in both ends of the dog bone of my 172 and it's much better. Just before doing that I discovered that the LHS gearbox mount under the battery was broken (both the battery box corner was snapped off and the big bolt was in two pieces) so in the 2 years I've owned the car the engine has only been supported at two points, which explained why it had weird vibrations, suffered strange torque steer and ate the small end of the stock dogbone mount.

Anyway, the Powerflex purple poly mounts add a bit of NHV but are much firmer drive and worth the compromise. I have another 172 and will put a poly mount in the small end of that but keep the stock rubber big end and compare.
 
  BMW 320d SE
There meant to be torqued up, 65 NM too lose or tight can strip the tread in the gearbox and i does not make any difference to vibration.

Well that’s not the recommendation in the instructions that come with the Evol dogbone. They recommend tightening by hand then something like a further 1/4 of a turn.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
  406 V6, Race Buggy
That's not great, you'd get microfretting at the surfaces and the thread if the inner moves because it's not up to torque, what's the reasoning behind that?!
 

JamesBryan

ClioSport Club Member
Not torquing them to spec sounds like a workaround for something that isn't designed properly ?

No problems or extra vibration when fitting a powerflex dogbone and torqued to 60Nm.
 
  phase 1 flamer 172
Fitted one, started car, felt increased vibration, removed it. but I wish id left it for a while to see if it settled down.
 
I read about the increased vibration before fitting mine but luckily I couldn’t notice any difference. I did notice the other improvements straight away though. For me it was a brilliant mod
 
I was running the purple series poly bushed dogbone, for racing, and upgraded to the Avol one, as it has less movement. The car popped out of gear de to this movement (even though it was small), so worth the upgrade, however for road use I would advise against it,.

Another thing, make sure your engine is align, as they vibrate more when when out of alignment esp on u prated mounts (felt more through steering wheel). Alignment is taken from straight edge of engine and measured to the top mounts.
 
  406 V6, Race Buggy
I can do progressive/internally damped poly lower that would barely vibrate more at idle, etc, than an OE one would, even if it was much stiffer on the throttle - but there's no way I could compete with the guys doing £30-40 mounts - they're not making much money at that even with cheap OTC bushes to keep the costs down, given they're fabbing the bar too.
They'd probably be more along the lines of the KTEC prices at best.
 


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