Yes, before you go hammering away, take the load off! -- Johan

 

Back to this discussion again...From fixing my towers, I found that the strut mount is a large part of the cause for the mushrooming. During an impact, the strut mount bends. It is too thin. When you have a mushroomed tower, your strut mount will also be bent. If you go with a fixed camber plate like the ireland engineering ones, you will be tripling the thickness of your strut mount. It WILL help prevent mushrooming by reinforcing it from under. Once the stock mount bends and deforms, there is absolutely no support from under. At that point, every bump you hit is going straight to the towers.

I believe that if you use only the reinforcement plates on top, even if they do work as designed and stop mushrooming, they will do nothing at all to prevent the stock mount from bending and the rubber cracking. You do not want all of the force of bumps being absorbed only by the stock mount. It will not last more than a few thousand miles.

Also, once the bushing in the stock mount cracks, the bushing will not help in the absorption of the forces. This is a major contributing factor in mushrooming. If you don't fix all of the weak points, you will still have problems!

 

Well said

 

Has anyone had an issue with the rear struts on an 02 R53 mushrooming?

Or is it all the engine weight on the front struts and there is nothing to worry about on the rear struts?

 

with weight distribution being almost perfect that shouldn't be an issue.

/just cheap parts in my eyes

I have the issues on all 4 in my 04 cooper among the other things. some worse than others. i guess its something you have to deal with when you want superior handling.