How to replace the front suspension lower control arm or its ball joint and bushes on Renault Clio 4 

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Symptoms of worn lower control arm ball joint

  1. Metal to metal hammer noise (clunking)
  2. Noise could happen only when steering and taking a bump
  3. Typically occurs when crossing bumps
  4. Noise on one side only

Suspension triangle arm removal on Renault Clio

Lift the front of your vehicle and put it on jack stands.
Take out both wheels.
Remove the anti-roll bar link and separate the steering tie rod ball joint from the wheel hub.
Compress the spring of the strut on the concerned side , making sure the two parts of your tool are as much as possible ​diametrically opposed:
Loosen the ball joint nut and take it out, also the nuts of the lower control arm bolts on the subframe.
Take out the rear bolt.
The front bolt cannot be taken out yet as it hits on the front chassis as shown in the below picture.
As a matter of fact, this lower front frame, also called radiator panel can be easily loosened and moved away in order to extract the lower control arm front bolt as shown later.

Removing the radiator subframe of the Renault Clio

The radiator support panel is fixed to the main chassis by the means of 4 bolts.
You need to take out completely 3 of them, and keep the 4th one on the opposite side to the one concerned by your intervention.
In order to easily access those bolts, start by:
  • Unscrewing the screws that hold the bumper to the radiator support
  • Take out the fixing clip that holds the inner fender mudguard to the radiator support
Proceed with the radiator panel bolts removal, except the lower one on the opposite side, in order to keep the panel hanging on it and the radiator supported. You still have to loosen it on order to be able to lower the radiator panel.
This picture shows how to loosen the lower radiator panel bolt:
This picture shows how to loosen the high radiator panel bolt:
You can now take out the control arm front bolt of the Renault Clio 4:
Your lower arm will now only hang on its ball joint which makes it much easier to take it out, almost without any tool, just pull it down with both hands while rotating it right and left.

Refitting the lower control arm of the Renault Clio

You can replace the entire control arm, or replace its bushings and the ball joint.
If the bushings are worn out, it is cheaper to replace the whole control arm, if it's only about replacing the ball joint, then it's cheaper to replace it alone, knowing that this requires a press. Never try to extract and/or refit a ball joint with a hammer!
You need of course to reverse the previous steps, nevertheless here are a few useful tips that will help you re-assemble faster the different parts.
Start by inserting the ball joint and temporarily secure it with its bolt.
Clean well with a wire brush the seats of the control arm and grease them.
If needed, help yourself by lifting the wheel hub and using a C-clamp for bringing the control arm into its supports, then refit its bolts and tighten them all (the three of them) to some 8.5 mKg of torque.
When refitting the radiator supporting frame (radiator bottom panel), make sure that the gap between this frame and the car chassis is equal on both sides, and that the radiator bushes do fit well into their intended seats on this panel.
Tighten well the 4 bolts of the radiator subframe to 8.5 mKg.

See also our other tutorials and buy your Renault Clio suspension parts here: