Two questions about bad subframe bushings

[BenDem]

First off, apologies for cross posting...


I've started chasing down a 'thunk' on my 88' 325i. I finally got the car up on jackstands, got a jack under the subframe, and... sure enough it's moving up and down. Seems I've got some worn out bushings.

I have two questions:

1st, I paid for PPI on the car before I bought it a couple of months ago. I bought the car in florida, drove it to Milwaukee, and have since that put on 300 miles or so on the car. So about 1350 miles since the PPI. The PPI report said all the bushings were OK... Should I be irritated?

2nd, The car doesn't get driven hard -- just the occasional cruise with the wife and kids. How OK is it to leave it as is and drive it a bit? The reason I ask is a time issue. I'm going to try to do the work myself, but it will be at least 6 weeks or so before I can get the time free. I'm still getting my wife to 'love' the car, so it would be better for me if we could still take it out from time to time without fear of death or doing more damage to the car. I've got a couple of longer weekend drives planned (100 miles or so). Every time we go out, she bonds with the car a little more

[jlevie]

1st, hard to say since the failure may not have been evident at the time of the inspection.

2nd, while there are some, non-critical, things that can be ignored until there is an opportunity for repair (radio out, side marker failure, windshield washer failure, etc), other more important things can't be safely deferred. In my mind this is one of the latter. Park the car or fix it now.

[BenDem]

You speak sense. I guess I just needed someone else to say it.

[BLACKCHARM88]

acetylene torch...

[duffyboby]

The car itself wont really fail on you because of the worn bushings, but it will have some wierd handling characteristic because of the subframe not beeing tight on the car, and because worn bushings mess up the geometry of the suspension.