In suspension circles there is a lot of talk about what defines the best suspension bushings. BOGE cuts through this noise.
Australia is a unique place with its wide open spaces and broad network of roads that can only be described as providing a bit of everything – or perhaps something for everyone. In fact Australia has long been considered one of the world’s best vehicle suspension test tracks, as a proving ground for new model development and tuning, and to evaluate real world performance and durability.
Success in this environment comes down to completely understanding the requirement, material optimisation and design, and extensive validation all coupled with manufacturing excellence.
LOCAL EXPERTISE
BOGE Australia’s team of home-grown engineers combine BOGE Rubber and Plastic’s collective global knowledge with local insight to produce great automotive components that are perfectly suited to the tough Australian environment. That is why BOGE has been the bushing design partner of choice to the local car industry for over 50 years.
MATERIALS MATTER
Debate continues about which materials are best for suspension bushes. Aspects like compliance, resilience, road-feel, service life, performance, value for money and ease of installation have all been used to measure the benefits of one material choice over another.
“As often as not this is just marketing hype,” says James Russell, Managing Director of BOGE Australia. “From an engineering perspective all I want to know is how well it works, for how long and what the trade-offs are? Put simply, this relates to performance, durability and increasingly important, isolation. An excellent result is often more a question of matching the correct material and design with the intended application than simply the merits of the individual components.”
For replacement and upgrade parts, rubber is often viewed as providing isolation at the expense of service life. While this can be true, it is important to note that rubber is a name used to describe an array of elastomers that includes both natural and synthetic polymers. Polyurethane, on the other hand, is an elastomer often characterised as providing high levels of performance and extended service life at the expense of isolation. Traditional materials all have their individual strengths and weaknesses, hence the opportunity to develop something new.
ENTER POLYELAST® ELASTOMER
Polyelast® elastomer is a completely synthetic elastomer distinguishable by its distinctive blue colour. It is a brainchild of BOGE Australia and the culmination of decades of elastomer compound development for automotive components. Polyelast® elastomer has been designed specifically to ensure excellent performance and durability characteristics while ensuring isolation of suspension and driveline components.
PUTTING IT TOGETHER
Even the best elastomer relies on proper design. BOGE Australia has been hard at work here as well with a host of clever design features across the Polyelast® range. BOGE’s success in overcoming the service life shortcomings of the Hilux front shock bush (a problem familiar to many) is testament to this.
Polyelast Hybrid® is an example of combining multiple materials into bushing designs to meet a fuller range of desired characteristics with exceptional durability and isolation.
Polyelast FG Falcon diff bushes are a prime example of where the Polyelast® elastomer provides a securely bonded elastic joint whilst a polyurethane snubber acts to limit travel under extreme loads. Composite inner and outer parts provide vast improvement in the management of heat transfer whilst making bushings easier to install.
ADVANCED MANUFACTURING
Sharing the BOGE DNA means that BOGE Australia has the world’s best equipment and processes, certified to multiple international standards.This ensures each part produced is as good as the next.
So whether it is thorough vehicle analysis and testing, guiding the perfect design, application-specific materials development and optimisation, or world-class manufacturing process, the team at BOGE has it covered. Their single mission is to just produce really excellent bushings.