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A key challenge in engineering design with elastomers for automotive applications, such as chassis suspension mounts and engine mounts, is to integrate fatigue life calculations into the design process. This will be required for life cycle engineering but is a difficult and complex task and this paper will outline some recent progress that has been made using a fracture mechanics approach together with a new finite element code, FLEXPAC, developed especially for this purpose. Finite element analysis enables the fracture mechanics approach to be generalised in principle to any geometry. In practice, however there have been serious difficulties in obtaining numerical solutions when rubber components containing internal cracks, whose surfaces are in contact, are modelled with large deformations and non linear elasticity properties. The overall problem has been approached in three parts. First, materials models are input for elasticity, stress softening and fatigue crack growth behaviour.