Hi all, took my focus for an MOT on Monday, failed on the handbrake :( now sorted for £30. It also had 2 advisories on the suspension arm rubber bushes, near side and offside. Can I replace just the bushes or do I have to replace the whole arm? Also, it is a job I can do outside my house? (I'm no mechanic but I'm good at following instructions!) the garage quoted me £180 or £60 if I supply the parts. More links and pics the better! Cheers guys. 

Its easier to buy the arms tbh but then involves tracking also. If doing at home you would need to use something to make it higher when dropped as you need to have the weight on the springs before fully tightning otherwise the bolts will keep spinning and without it being higher you would struggle for space. There is tons of YouTube guides.

If it's only an advisory do you really want to do it? if it was a safety problem it would have failed the MOT.

To be honest I wouldn't bother doing anything at this stage, unless you feel anything amiss when driving?  Otherwise I would leave it for now, and you'll likely find that it will last until the next MOT (possibly longer) before causing any issues.

8 hours ago, F0CUE said:

Its easier to buy the arms tbh but then involves tracking also. If doing at home you would need to use something to make it higher when dropped as you need to have the weight on the springs before fully tightning otherwise the bolts will keep spinning and without it being higher you would struggle for space. There is tons of YouTube guides.

I only did mine as I had a noise issue that I was trying to track down. The arms were £35 each from Unipart, and bearing in mind a new rear bush was £17ish it was daft not to replace it all in one go.

As F0CUE said, you will need the appropriate tools to do the job (including a good breaker bar, or impact wrench) for the front arm bolt as mine was rusted in place. You will then need the car to be sat on its wheels once the new arms are in to tighten the bolts to full torque so that the bushes are not under tension in the normal driving position - they will do up if the car is raised, but you risk damage to the rubber bushes (I parked my car over a kerb with appropriate wheel chocks, and tightened them as much as I could, then got the alignment chap to tighten the fronts the rest of the way).