Are 250 and 220 lower control arms interchangable?

[MrTrendizzle]

As title asks can i fit a 220D lower control arm to my IS250? I have my MOT at 13:30 and while doing my final once around i checked under the car and noticed the driver side bush has a crack along oneside but not to the point where it causes movement. It looks like a surface crack only a couple of mm deep.  

Had a look online and fleebay is coming up with This 220D lower control arm for £40 or do i need the exact replacement for the 250?  

Car is a 2007 (56 plate) IS250 Manual if that changes anything.  

EDIT: Just got under the car with my camera. It actually looks worse in the photo.

[MrTrendizzle]

Well as an update i failed the MOT. This bush was not one of the fails nor was it even an advisory.  

Failed on nearside front shock leaking  

Exhaust Lambada after 2nd test outside specified limits (Could be due to small exhaust leak)  

Headlamp lens defective bothsides (Very yellowish and one lets in water)  

Brakepads nearside rear wearing thin  

Service brake binding but not excessively offside rear.  

Fast/second idle test reads,  

CO 0.01/0.01  (up to 0.20 to pass)

HC 6/4  (up to 200 to pass)

Lambada 1.058 (0.970 - 1.030 to pass)  

Now is it better to get some new shiny coilovers?  

Vland headlights?  

Exhaust will get a new gasket somewhere i guess. Can't see anything else being wrong with it.  

New pads and adjust the handbrake a little.

[Mr Vlad]

Oh dear that's a #ummer. Genuine shocks are pricey but if you look here in the gen 2 section someone asked about rear shocks and excellent alternatives came up. Look at that.

Headlights well there are those who love vland and those that don't. That's a choice only you can make but on eBay there's always used Headlights for sale.

[Linas.P]

Control arms should be the same, I am not aware of any suspension differences between IS250 and 220d.

Headlights can be easily polished, you can use some epoxy to seal the leaking one if needed just for mot, but obviously replacement would be ideal. 

[MrTrendizzle]

1 hour ago, Mr Vlad said:

Oh dear that's a #ummer. Genuine shocks are pricey but if you look here in the gen 2 section someone asked about rear shocks and excellent alternatives came up. Look at that.

Headlights well there are those who love vland and those that don't. That's a choice only you can make but on ebay there's always used Headlights for sale.

I was quoted £350 from the garage for the shock. At that price i might aswell grab some coilovers and do all 4 corners and not worry about them for a while.
I'll take a look through the forums in a minute for a spare. I've just cleaned the shock and it looks brand new with zero leakage. I have a sneaky suspicion it's old dirt and WD40 stuck to the shock the tester looked at.

 

1 hour ago, Linas.P said:

Control arms should be the same, I am not aware of any suspension differences between IS250 and 220d.

Headlights can be easily polished, you can use some epoxy to seal the leaking one if needed just for mot, but obviously replacement would be ideal. 

Thank you Linas. Yeah they look identical. I just wanted to double check before committing the buy.
Headlights like you said a bit of polish and elbow grease will do wonders. I hadn't thought about adding some epoxy to the surround to stop the leak. Might look in to that for now. I'm kinda using the MOT sheet as a good excuse to upgrade parts as i can claim "£200 per headlight vs £500 for both vlands" without the wife getting upset with me 😄

[Linas.P]

2 hours ago, MrTrendizzle said:

I have a sneaky suspicion it's old dirt and WD40 stuck to the shock the tester looked at.

That happened to me - just in my case it was advisory "light mist". What actually happened - I was replacing pads before mot and used some WD40 on pins, somehow some of WD sprayed on shock. Thought it was pretty silly as it was quite obviously not coming from the shock and most of it was actually on the spring.

Seems like they just wanted to fail you (halfraud by any chance?). Although care had many other things wrong, so perhaps not. 

[MrTrendizzle]

13 hours ago, Linas.P said:

That happened to me - just in my case it was advisory "light mist". What actually happened - I was replacing pads before mot and used some WD40 on pins, somehow some of WD sprayed on shock. Thought it was pretty silly as it was quite obviously not coming from the shock and most of it was actually on the spring.

Seems like they just wanted to fail you (halfraud by any chance?). Although care had many other things wrong, so perhaps not. 

I've been under the car today and yup. After a good clean the shock looks good as new. I'll attach some pictures to show you. Turns out it was old dirt and WD40. A family friend that does MOT's down south told me it's their job to inspect not clean. He told me to adjust the bolts to make it look like it's been sorted and send it back.  

Exhaust i've slapped on some gungum for now. There were 3 small holes under the heatshield before the cat. I could fit a 5p sideways through one hole and the other two no bigger than a nail. I'll get some exhaust bandage on there and replace the heatshield. All the bolts snapped which is always fun.  

I'm just waiting on the lower control arm bushing unit and i'll get it back in for a retest hopfully on the 21st (Touch wood the bush bolts won't be a nightmare)  
While i had it all open i gave the rest of the parts a good wire brushing and a quick coat of paint to slow down corrosion.

EDIT: Yup it was Halfrauds. I had a free £20 MOT voucher from my insurance company and an extra £10 from the premium free club they offer. so got it for 99p. Honestly can't argue at a 99p MOT 😂

 

[Linas.P]

Yes - I appreciate they should not clean the shock, but considering it is under the car and it will be dirty/wet they should take at least reasonable steps to conclude that shock is actually leaking and it is not just sprayed with some dirt. When shock is leaking it is usually quite obvious as there would be runs of grease-like (not oil) from the seal.

[MrTrendizzle]

As an update. I gave the shocks a good clean and a coat of black paint. They look somewhat newish (Bumpy but clean now), replaced the bush and sorted the exhaust. I've since wrapped it with a heat bandage type thingy (The stuff they wrap turbo pipes in) and attempted fitting the heatshield. It rattled like crazy so i've just removed it again.
Passed the MOT with 2 defects (Headlamp lens defective) which is due to yellowing and scratches/cracks through the plastic. I'm out there today polishing them up the best i can but my wife has agreed Vlands will be fitted before the next MOT along with brand new discs and pads all round.