Why Use Urethane?

Production vehicles are built using rubber bushings in control arms, strut arms, leaf springs, body mounts, motor mounts, transmission mounts, sway bars and shocks. Additionally, rubber components can be found being used on coil spring pads, leaf spring pads and suspension bump stops. Not only are rubber components on the soft side to accommodate the typical car and truck buyer, they tend to deteriorate rapidly. This contributes to premature component failure, a “spongy” ride and less than ideal performance handling. Urethane can correct these conditions, while improving drivability.

Polyurethane is a term used to describe a wide-ranging family of elastomers (any compound exhibiting the characteristics of natural rubber; stretchy and elastic). Poly meaning “many” and “urethane” the classification of the chemical structure. Polyurethane or urethane for short is used as a solid cast material (bushings, mounts and mount inserts) and can be as soft as a rubber band or as hard as plastic.

There are approximately 20 categories in which urethanes are rated based on physical properties. The most common is hardness. Others include: abrasion resistance, compression set, tensile strength, tear strength; etc. Ratings are not affected by the color.

The original rubber bushing or mount was fairly soft which helped attenuate noise and vibration that is generated by the tires and road surface. Increasing the hardness of the bushing either with hard rubber, urethane or even bronze, will allow more transmission of noise and vibrations. Some manufacturers formulate the hardness and design to reduce this effect. A softer urethane bushing allows the vehicle to perform better without the harshness, even over rubber components of the same hardness. The only change in ride quality is increased performance!

No. Installing urethane components requires no special tools. However, if unique tools and equipment are required due to the type of vehicle, you will need them in order to do the job properly.

PROTHANE has a complete shell program for most popular applications. Many of our control arm bushing kits comes complete with a new shell. On some applications you will need to reuse the metal shell, so be very careful when removing it from the vehicle. The shells themselves are not a replacement item. If you do damage a shell during the removal procedure, you have a few choices; obtain a used piece from a repair shop or salvage yard or purchase a new shell with rubber bushings from your local parts store.

In a word, NO. Squeaking is caused by high frequency vibrations that can be heard rather than felt. It is usually caused by lack of lubrication, poor installation, incorrect part, or urethane that may be too hard for the application. In sway bar mount applications, most squeaking is the result of not cleaning the bar thoroughly prior to installation and failing to use our “squeak proof” Super Grease! Additionally, most of our dynamic application bushings feature grooves or splines designed to hold our grease (included) providing even greater performance.

PROTHANE warranties all it’s urethane products to be free of defects in materials and workmanship (not due to abuse, neglect or misapplication) for the total time the vehicle remains with the original purchaser of the product(s). Should the products fail to meet these conditions, we (Prothane) will replace our product only, free of charge. This excludes any and all related labor charges. The product must be shipped to us (postage prepaid) along with a copy of the original receipt.

Feel free to give us a call or send us a email. We have ASE Certified Mechanics that are ready to help you with any questions that you might have before or after you‘ve purchased the part.

We also offer products from many different manufacturers, call us we’ll be happy to help.

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