Trailing Arms Early Failure

[BigJim1]

In May of last year, I replaced all four of the trailing arms on my 2003 Pathfinder LE. I also replaced all the bolts. Almost a year this month and they are worn out again. I didn't put the cheap ones in either. After we installed the new arms, we noticed when we hit a fair size bump in the road, it feels like the rear is bottoming out. Come to think of it, we replaced all the shocks on the truck also.

My question is this: do the rear wheels have to have the weight of the truck on them when tightening the bolts. If so, could that be the reason for the bottoming out and premature failure of the control arms? Man I hate to go through that again.

[04pathse]

do the rear wheels have to have the weight of the truck on them when tightening the bolts?

yes

[BigJim1]

Well that was quick and to the point. lol, Thank you, I really do appreciate it. That may be the reason the trailing arms wore out within a year.