Engine and gearbox mounts in the UAE: types, positions and how to order the right one

The engine and gearbox are joined into one powertrain, and the mounts, with any torque rods, are what hold that mass to the body. Vibracoustic describes the job as carrying the static and dynamic loads of the motor throughout its service life while isolating vibrations from low to high frequency. It also describes the conflict inside the job: isolating small excitations such as idle shake calls for a soft mount, while damping the large excitations that come from the road calls for a firm one. Much of the design of the more complex mounts below is an attempt to be both.

The warning signs the makers list are mostly noise and vibration rather than a part that stops the car. The rubber deteriorates or cracks, or a fluid-filled mount leaks, and what the owner notices is a vibration, a thump or a noise. The damage can reach further than the noise. febi, the parts brand, says worn mountings bring excessive vibration and more engine noise, and warns that excessive engine movement can let components such as the fan or the radiator hoses make contact with other parts, leading to further damage.

That is why a vibration at idle or a thump when load changes is worth treating as a mounting question early. Mounts are not the only possible cause of those symptoms, and a workshop has to confirm which part is at fault, but they are among the parts the makers themselves list for them.

There is no single count. Vibracoustic describes three-point and four-point installations for longitudinal engines, and pendulum or central mounting systems. One Dutch automotive site's guide describes a common longitudinal layout as a mount on each side of the engine and one at the rear.

On a transverse engine, one mounted across the car, the same guide places the mounts at the timing-belt side of the engine, on the gearbox, and low down on the subframe, where the last one is the torque rod. Vibracoustic says most transverse drivetrains are suspended by pendulum systems comprising up to three torque rods, and that a torque rod, also called a torque roll restrictor, dampens the effect of torque by restricting motor roll during load transfer.

The torque rod is a rod rather than a block of rubber, and it does a different job from the side mounts: the Dutch guide says it stops the engine block tilting when you accelerate or release the throttle. Names do not reliably tell you the shape. A retailer listing we read for a Nissan Altima part is titled 'Engine Torque Strut Mount' and is also listed as 'Insulator-Engine Mounting, Passenger Side', so one part can arrive under two names.

A gearbox mount, also searched for as a gearbox mounting or a transmission mount, is the support at the gearbox end of the powertrain. Vibracoustic lists gearbox mounts as their own product beside engine mounts and torque rods, and on a transverse layout the gearbox mount is one of the three positions, so a quote has to say which mount is meant.

Rubber mount. febi calls this the traditional kind and the most commonly used: rubber bonded to metal, in shapes from simple to complex, with its stiffness set by the rubber itself. The failure febi lists for it is material deterioration over time.

Hydraulic mount. Vibracoustic describes a hydro mount as an upper and a lower chamber connected by channels and separated by a rubber membrane inside a cage, filled with hydraulic fluid that adds damping. At small idle movements the membrane moves freely and the mount stays soft. At the larger movements of a rough road the cage stops the membrane and the fluid is forced through the main channel, which damps the movement. ZF's brand timeline records Lemförder introducing the first hydraulically damping engine mounts in 1976. The failure particular to this kind is leaking fluid, which both febi and ZF list, and a mount that has leaked has lost the part of the design that made it different from a rubber one.

Switchable mount. Vibracoustic describes hydro mounts that are switched electrically or pneumatically, with a bypass channel that is open at idle to lower the stiffness and closed while driving to damp road shake. ZF's version under the Lemförder brand uses an integrated air spring and two characteristic curves: the air spring absorbs low-frequency engine movement at idle, and the mount switches to a considerably harder hydraulic mode when driving, depending on vehicle speed and engine speed. ZF said in 2019 that it offered them for selected Audi and Mercedes-Benz models. febi adds that vacuum-controlled mounts can leak air and that electronically controlled mounts can set fault codes. Vibracoustic also describes a passive version that switches by itself according to the size of the movement, with no external control, and says it lowers idle dynamic stiffness by up to 45 per cent compared with standard decoupling solutions. That figure is the maker's own.

Active mount. This adds an actuator, an acceleration sensor and a control unit to a hydraulic mount. The control unit calculates in real time the movement the actuator must make to cancel the vibration coming from the engine, at the same frequency and opposite in phase. Vibracoustic says its system behaves as an ordinary hydro mount for the slow movements of the road and uses the actuator for the fast movements of the engine, and claims noise reductions of up to 20 dB at part load and up to 15 dB at full load between 20 and 200 Hz, which again are its own figures. Honda describes a different arrangement on some V6 models: solenoids in the front and rear engine mounts, driven by a separate control unit, that cancel vibration when the engine runs on three cylinders.

Why the complicated kinds exist at all. Vibracoustic says downsizing, cylinder deactivation and higher combustion pressures create vibrations that a passive mount cannot always remove, and that the same approach applies to hybrid and electric motors. For hybrids it adds that the growth of recuperation functions calls for torque rods that support motor roll in both directions.

What this means for an order. You cannot tell which kind a car has from its model name, and we found no list of which cars sold in the UAE use switchable or active mounts. The chassis number settles it at the counter, and a photograph of the mount that shows any hose, vacuum line or electrical connector helps the counter see which kind it is.

Each maker lists the signs in its own words, and the lists overlap. ZF's list is fluid leaks or signs of rubber deterioration, stronger vibration reaching the body, noticeable engine movement when the engine is switched off, and clicking noises on load changes. The Dutch automotive site's guide adds a thumping feel and noise when the clutch is engaged, noises when accelerating suddenly or releasing the accelerator, and a droning sound or vibration in the cabin that follows engine speed. febi lists cracking rubber, fluid leakage and engine shifting, plus air leaks on vacuum-controlled mounts and fault codes on electronic ones.

These are the signs the makers connect to mounts, not a diagnosis. Other worn parts can produce a thump or a vibration, and only an inspection of the mounts and what is around them settles which part is at fault. A workshop inspection is the dependable check, not the symptom alone.

Rubber ages with temperature, and an engine mount sits in the engine compartment. Three published sources deal with this directly. Vibracoustic reported in 2009 that it had developed an EPDM-based compound for engine compartments to replace natural rubber, in response to rising engine temperatures and reduced ventilation, with heat resistance up to 20 °C higher and fatigue durability twice that of conventional elastomers, by its own figures. A 2011 SAE technical paper described a chloroprene-based mount rubber whose heat resistance and durability exceeded natural rubber, and said the approach could help keep noise and vibration quality over long periods even in regions with harsh heat environments. And a 2024 paper in the Chinese Journal of Automotive Engineering, testing an engine mount rubber bushing, found that a 10 °C rise in working temperature cut its thermal ageing life by about half and that an improved rubber formulation tripled it.

What none of this gives us is a UAE number. The Vibracoustic and 2024 sources concern the temperature inside an engine compartment, not the temperature of the air, the SAE paper describes a material rather than a measured mount life, and none of the three measured a UAE car. We found no study or fleet data on how long mounts last here, so we give no interval in months or kilometres and we are not going to extrapolate one. What the evidence does support is narrower. A hot engine compartment shortens rubber life, the UAE is a hot country, and a mount that has seen many summers is worth inspecting for its age as well as for the distance the car has covered.

One related detail from a maker's own site. Febest says its hydraulic mounts are filled with synthetic oils with additives that allow operation at temperatures as low as minus 45 °C. That is a low-temperature figure, and the page we read gives no high-temperature one.

ZF Aftermarket advises replacing all engine mounts during a repair rather than only the defective one. The reason it gives is that the new mount would otherwise risk having to take higher forces and vibrations because the remaining mounts are already heavily worn, which may speed up further damage.

febi's advice points the same way. It recommends replacing a worn mounting rather than trying to repair it, and says that when any engine or transmission mounting is replaced all the correct procedures must be followed, to avoid shortening the life of the new part.

In practice that gives three questions to put to a workshop. Which of the other mounts have been checked, and what did the check find. Whether the torque rod, if the car has one, is in the job, and whether it is sold as one assembly or with its bushes separately; we could not find a general answer to that, because it is a question about the catalogue for your car. And whether the mount going in is the same kind as the one coming out, given ZF's point about design. If an engine or gearbox is coming out for another reason, the same questions apply, and our pages on engines and gearboxes cover those jobs.

Catalogues use their own words for these parts. The Toyota, Nissan and Hyundai entries below are as US dealer websites reproduce those makers' catalogues, and they name the part with the words engine mounting, insulator or bracket, followed by a position. The table shows what we read. The point is not the numbers. It is that the position, the year and the engine each change the number, which is why a model name cannot order a mount and a counter that decodes the chassis number can.

The message that lets a supplier quote in one reply is short. The chassis number, typed as text. The engine code if you can read it, and whether the gearbox is manual or automatic. A photograph of the mount you think has failed, wide enough to show where it sits. Which side you mean, stated as seen from the driver's seat, because a counter has to match it to the catalogue's left and right. Any number printed on the old part, if it is readable. The symptom in a line. And what you want: one mount or the set, and whether you want the carmaker's own part, a part from a maker that also supplies carmakers, or an aftermarket design. Our guide to quoting with a chassis number covers where to find it and how counters use it.

ZF's recommendation is the plainest statement we found: garages should use OE-quality spare parts with the exact characteristics of the part originally fitted, because a mount that fits can still differ in design. Whether a given brand meets that is the brand's own claim. None of the statements in the table below is an independent test, and we found no independent test of mounts sold in the UAE.

Read the table as what each maker says about itself, not as a ranking. The rows describe a technology first (Lemförder), a link to original equipment (Corteco), a test claim (febi), a catalogue focus (Febest) and a redesign (Meyle), and none of them gives you a way to check the box in your hand. Buy from a counter that will put the brand and the part number on the invoice, and keep the invoice.

We could not find a UAE measurement of how long mounts last. We could not find a dated UAE quote for a mount from a named seller that we could check, so no price band appears here and no price is implied. We could not find a list of which UAE-market models carry switchable or active mounts. And we found no independent test comparing aftermarket mounts with original ones.

Where a number appears on this page a named source stands behind it, and where a figure is a maker's own claim the page says so. If you have a dated mount invoice from a UAE seller that you are willing to share, it is the one thing that would let this page print a price.