Rear beam wear

[Janne L]

Living in a country where we drive on the correct side of the road (left is always right, as my lady likes to say) our rear beams usually go bad on the left side of the car first.
How is it in the UK? Same or other side?

[306Dan]

Left side ive found on my beams

[bigcheez2k3]

My drivers side is screwed. Think it was the same on my other ones too.

[powerandtorque]

From the dozens of 205 beams that I've stripped over the years, it usually seems to be the right hand side (UK drivers side) that fails first - I'd guess something like 70% of failures will be on that side.

306 beams are basically just an upscaled version of the 205 design and uses the same fitment shafts/bearings/arms, so logically they should fail in the same way - I've not stripped that many compared to 205/309 beams to form an accurate picture though.

It's slightly academic of course, as if one side has completely failed, the other is likely to be in poor shape anyway.

[Danny Wideboy]

The three I have done were all worse on the drivers side.

[THE_Liam]

No pattern really, three dead beams I've had, one on the left, one on the right and one was equally knackered on both sides!

[306carter]

The 3 i had on my 106 had all gone on the drivers side.

[Mattcheese31]

Mine always go on drivers side

[Ruan]

Had it on both sides - it depends how your roads are cambered tbh...

Also the wheels don't sit squarely to the arches of the car, one sticks out ever so slightly further due to the beam design.

I think it also depends on the countries use of roundabouts vs motorways... For example if you live in Milton Keynes, UK then the beam is evidently going to be wrecked on the passenger side....

[Toms306]

As you drive on the correct side in Sweden, do you have a full arch liner on the left or right arch?

[welshpug]

every one ive taken apart has been worse on the right side, including the torsion bars.

[bashbarnard]

The last one I built drivers. The one before both

[Janne L]

Interesting, we must conclude that Peugeot used some sort of rust acceleration compound when building right hand side rear beam components! It's the only logical conclusion!

[welshpug]

more bumps near the kerb and more roundabouts hence less movement to rh side meaning more concentrated wear.

[Toms306]

But more road salt, mud and puddles on the kerbside...

Is there any way to keep a good beam good apart from keeping it clean? The one on mine is the best non refurb'd one I've seen for a while!

[welshpug]

rebuild it every 4-5 years.

[DeeTurbo]

My beam has done 320k miles and it's only now starting to creak, but to be fair I notice the lip on the seals had cracks in last year and I could have gotten away with just replacing them then but now I'll have to do a full rebuild.

Tom, you could try using silicon grease around the seals to stop them drying out but once they dry out and crack you can't do anything but replace them.

[Toms306]

Oh, I wont need to worry about that then.

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My beam has done 320k miles and it's only now starting to creak, but to be fair I notice the lip on the seals had cracks in last year and I could have gotten away with just replacing them then but now I'll have to do a full rebuild.

Tom, you could try using silicon grease around the seals to stop them drying out but once they dry out and crack you can't do anything but replace them.

Hmm, I'll probably just leave it then, but make sure I give it a good clean underneath before it gets stored.