Enclave/Traverse/Acadia/Outlook Rear Control Arm Replacement

Replacing the upper control arm, lateral arm (adjustable link) and the rear springs on our 2008 Buick Enclave. This is the same for the 2008-2007 Buick Enclave, 2007-2016 GMC Acadia, 2009-2017 Chevy Traverse and the 2007-2010 Saturn Outlook.

These individual videos have been combines and are unedited. They contain ramblings from an exhausted guy that's likely doped up on LP heater fumes.

We were told 1 rear control arm, 1 front ball joint and the rear springs needed to be replaced on our Enclave. We were quoted $1,500 for the job, including an alignment. As you'll see, all the control arms were bad. If you're going to do one, you may as well do them all. The 4 Dorman control arms, 2 rear Moog springs and 2 Dorman front control arms w/ball joints cost me under $500 from RockAuto.com. The job took somewhere between took about 12 hours with the difficulty of removing the adjustable cam bolts. DON'T buy the Moog cam bolts that I reference early in the video, because as pointed out later, they don't work. I didn't properly identify some of the parts so take note:

The crazy shaped upper control arm that sits toward the front of the assembly is called the "upper control arm". These parts are different for the right and left sides.

The upper control arm located toward the back of the assembly is called the "lateral link" and I've seen it called the "adjustable link". These are the same part for both the left and right side.

The part I call the hub is actually called the "knuckle".

Lastly, I made a comment about the bolt used in the adjustment cams seize causing the rubber to twist when the suspension travels up and down. After thinking this over I've concluded that the core of the bushing isn't meant to rotate. This is why they seize. and it'a poor design. I suspect almost all of these suspensions will continue to fail prematurely unless they improve the design how the control arms are connected to the cross member.

Video was made Jan 14-15, 2017.