What's that clunking noise?

[Tumbletop]

So I'm driving my .:R (mk4) back from work today and as I go over the sleeping policemen out of work, there's a slightly louder than usual clonk from what sounds like the rear of the car (passenger side).

Nothing too bad I think, the suspension is getting on a bit and sometimes creaks a bit (I assume the front strut tops are on their way out). Anyway, then I go over a few more bumps, and the noise returns, so I slow right down and it stops on the next bump. Speed up a bit, and it comes back, and seems to be getting alarmingly loud, and I'm beginning to worry that maybe one of the rear dampers has come loose.

Anyway, just been crawling underneith in the dark with the torch, wiggling everything I could reach and everything seems tight. I've had a quick search through the archives, and I see Gti_fly commented on a clonking noise which was the rear ARB bushes which had failed.

If this is the case - what does "failed" actually mean, and would it go this suddenly and make this noise? I assumed that when they fail they'd just split and the handling would suffer a bit. I'll go out and have another look tomorrow in the daylight and see if I can see anything visual with the bushes.

If they have gone, how easy is it for the enthusiastic amateur to replace the ARB with an uprated one (Neuspeed seem popular?), and how easy is it to replace the bushes? I hope you don't need a press!

[Gti_Fly]

Could well be split rear ARB bushes, certainly sounds like what my car had before. Speed bumps just kill the mk4's ARB bushes.

I took my car to APS, and whilst it was up on the ramps, the guys there showed me the rear ARB bushes, and how they had cracked around the ARB itself.

I had them change the bushes for me, the bushes cost littery a few quid (less than a tenner), but the labour is about and hour or less.

Personally I didn't go down the uprated ARB route -

I didn't want to just fit a rear one, incase it made the car feel unbalanced (too much oversteer), and I've heard from some people that the bushes DIE really quickly on uprated ARB's because of the increased load they produce

[Tumbletop]

Ok thats quite reassuring that thats what the problem could well be, thanks Gti_Fly. I'll get the think up on the ramps this weekend and take a proper look.