Long story short, I took my car to get a service check and the mechanic informed me that the sway bar was cracked. He asked if the car had been sitting for a prolonged period of time and I said yes. It was my grandfather’s and I had recently assumed ownership of it.
It would cost approximately $300 to fix.
I’ve looked it up on Wiki and I kind of understand the function of the sway bar but any additional information would be helpful.
My main questions are these: is it worth it to fix this? Is it necessary to fix this? Would not fixing it cause either later damage down the road or some sort of safety hazard?
If the rest of the vehicle is sound then I think $300 isn’t too unfair. Also you might wanna try looking up how to fix it yourself unless its one of those things that is impossible to do with out messing it up.
I am going to ask my buddy Ian for you what kind of car is it?
Don’t mean to hijack but I see vendors selling after-market sway bars. If they are effective, why aren’t they standard equipment? At the manufacturing level they can’t be that expensive to install. Certainly a lot less than having them installed after the purchase.
Are they worthwhile? If there is an aftermarket sway bar available should the owner have one installed?
Sway bars or anti-roll bars are standard equipment on nearly all modern production cars. The after market ones you see on tuner websites are either adjustable, lighter, or stiffer to change the handling of the vehicle.
As for the OP the sway bars purpose is to prevent the vehicle from rolling on turns. I do not mean rolling as in end over end but to help keep the vehicle level on turns which helps the handling of the vehicle since all of your weight is not concentrated on one side of the vehicle.
If you have the money then I would have it fixed but it is not necessary to have on your vehicle, just don’t drive as if it was a race car and you should be fine.
Although some feel that sway bars can be superfluous, in more modern cars they are an integral part of the design of the handling of the car, and broken ones can reduce the cornering ability and stability during fast/emergency maneuvers (such as fast lane changes). Can you drive carefully and avoid replacing one? Sure. Is fixing it the right thing to do? Yes, if you have the money.
Most of the time not fixing it now will not damage the car further. There could be an exception to this if the bar breaks completely and the broken bar damages the undercarriage. I would say this is extremely rare, but without knowing details about the car I just want to throw it out as a possibility.
I had one crack on a Subaru Outback and it did effect the handling causing very weird and scary reactions at highway speeds + being on a turn (in one direction I think it was right) + hitting a bump.
I just had my cracked left side sway bar replaced and was shocked at the improved handling. (And the lack of noise going over speed bumps. And turning corners.) My mechanic told me it was dangerous to not have it replaced.
Thanks for all your answers thus far. So what I’m hearing is that my car won’t blow up or break apart into a million pieces where it’s suddenly just me and a steering wheel crusing down the highway. But that it’s a really great idea to get it fixed. Understood. I think it’ll be a month or two but I’ll be taking it in for the repairs.
Typically the aftermarket sway bars improve handling at the expense of a smooth ride. The manufacture decided where they think the best compromise between ride and handling should be but you can change it with aftermarket sway bars for many cars. Often a ‘sport’ model of a car will come with a stiffer sway bar than the ‘regular’ model from the factory and some manufactures offer sway bars through their performance divisions.
Sometimes aftermarket sway bars replace the factory sway bar with a larger/stiffer one and sometimes they are just an ‘add-on’. Many sway bars are adjustable or there are different levels of stiffness available to choose just how much you want to affect the ride and handling.
Aftermarket sway bars can also change a cars bias towards oversteer/understeer so it is best not to change/add them unless you know what you are doing.
If the swaybar breaks, it will dramatically affect the handling of the car, probably giving your car a tendency to understeer. I would drive cautiously in any high-speed cornering situation such as freeway offramp loops.
I would ask whether it is the sway bar itself or a sway bar link. The sway bar is basically a tube running left to right behind your bumper somewhere. The links are two smaller pieces of metal that attach each end of the tube to the suspension. I’m sure it’s possible for the swaybar itself to crack, but I’ve never really heard of that happening. The links are usually thinner, weaker and some have bushings and grease points making them a lot more prone to breaking than the simpler and stronger sway bar itself. A quick search indicates that the links for a 2000 lesabre run from $5 to $30. Make sure they aren’t trying to replace the whole thing for what should be a $50 repair.
I wouldn’t say its dramatic. The sway bar supplements the rest of the cars suspension, but mainly controls body roll. If it somehow is having a dramatic effect on handling, then he definitely has bigger problems, elsewhere.
I’ve completely removed my rear sway bar for a period of time and driven around with no issues. At the normal street speeds most people drive (especially through corners), they’d be hard-pressed to notice, most times.
It greatly depends on the vehicle. Some vehicles will behave exactly as you describe. Whereas I’ve seen others with broken sway bars which would just about scrape their sides on a hard corner.
When I used to offroad in my Jeep Cherokee, I had quick detach sway bar links. It allowed for more suspension travel for rock crawling. I got off the trail and decided to drive it down the road without reconnecting the sway bar, just to see how it handled. Not a good idea. That thing was dangerous above 50 mph.
But, that’s with a high center of gravity vehicle with effectively no sway bar. You’re in a car with a somewhat functioning sway bar. If you stick to city driving I think you’ll be fine. But, if you want to get up to highway speeds, I would recommend getting it fixed.
Heh, don’t tell my insurance company but I haven’t had a sway bar on my Wrangler for about 6-7 years now. But the way my suspension is set up, it’s not very different.
It’s common for less than casual off roaders to remove the sway bars entirely. I don’t have them on my Discovery and I drive the freeways of Los Angeles. Certainly the vehicle feels a bit “squirrelly” at times in curves and such, but I know that it’s not a sports car and I don’t drive it as if it were.
To the OP, get it fixed. You’ll be happier in the long run.
