Here is one of her front (passenger side) control arm with the front facing bushing...
So my son came over today and I did some maintenance work on his car. While under It, I saw his bushings and they were torn on the left and right sides (up and down) on each of his front bushing (passenger and drive's side) as I could see light through them...the top was attached but still the bushing was torn, or it seemed. Maybe that's okay... as long as the top and bottom are attached? His is a '07 2.5T - really the same car as my wife's V70 except for in the sedan format so I don't think that his bushing would be any different, or are they? His car has about 112K miles on it now while hers has 167K (65K more) miles so that's another odd thing regarding why one seems torn and the other is not. If you ask me which drives better, his does. There are no suspension issues, nor is there any strange tire wear. I do not know the history of his car's suspension work- I assume it's all stock from the factory. But none-the-less, his car is a pleasure to drive!
After all of this, my question is, should I work with him to replace that front bushing, or is it better to just replace the control arm altogether? Or is this unnecessary? I'm thinking we still have some time but if the rubber bushing is already torn, it's a matter of time before it deteriorates or causes other bushings to wear out too, or am I wrong here? For those who have been through this, is it typically for just that one bushing to go or does the rear one on the control arm also go? With that answered, should I replace the arm, should I also be looking at replacing the ball joint, or can I resuse it if it's still good? All of this can add up to some $$'s, right? I'm inclined to just go after the front bushing in his control arm if the other components still have life but need to know if that's practical or not.
Any comments/opinions from those who have been through this? If I'm just replacing that bushing, I know I have a lot of choices: from Volvo, Lemfoerder to name just two, and now, Powerflex makes a poly bushing for that spot (eeuroparts.com) and all of them out there (except for Volvo's) are fairly reasonable. Oh, and I forgot, there's IPD's HD control arm too which seems pretty reputable. I was reading on another site that the thing to do is replace the front with Powerflex and the rear bushing with Volvo's, if we are pushing out and in bushings in the original control arm. I have no issue with pressing the bushings. I have access to someone who does this everyday so that doesn't scare me. Anyway, the scenario's go on and on. I'd just like to have some discussion here about this and get your input so I'll know what to do when it's time to deal with these control arms.
Thanks in advance,
-MIJ
and when I said Hey! he goes like, see, that's why I don't let customers come watch me. Yeah right 
). To resume, he punched the bushings in with no trouble, even with no grease. I was surprised. So with proper adapters, this can be done.
A lot of the noise is cut out by decent tires as well (was running almost just casings, new sneaks a few weeks ago), but she handles QUITE well now. I've owned land yacht Cadillacs and Lincolns that float and feel disconnected, down to a Honda CRX Si that you feel like you're riding in an old metal-wheeled roller skate that skit-skatches around corners (yes, just made that term up... I think). She rides a bit like a yacht, but handles like a small sports coupe, even with the sheer mass these cars weigh.