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Sway Bar Bushing Replacement

Put an end to sloppy steering

The ironic thing about a sway bar is that, rather than cause the car to sway to and fro, it actually works as an anti-sway or stabilizer bar. The system of steel bars and rubber bushings is designed to prevent the body of the vehicle from leaning away from the suspension during cornering. Since sway bar sounds so much cooler to say, though, the phrase has entered into the automotive lexicon.

Anti-Roll Role

The way a sway bar works is very simple. In a corner, the inertia and mass of the vehicle combined with gravity do their best to try to tip the vehicle over. The suspension, in turn, does its best to prevent this from happening. A certain amount of body lean will always occur. The body of the vehicle will always want to side with gravity and will do its best to pull away from the suspension in a fight to keep the vehicle on the pavement (as opposed to going off and mowing the lawn with the oil pan).

The sway bar acts as a referee between the body and the suspension. In terms of nuts and bolts it literally adds another connection from the suspension to the body, and, by way of a sturdy steel bar, prevents the two from coming apart. The bar is insulated from the body and suspension by way of rubber bushings to prevent it from clanging around and to allow for a certain amount of deflection as the suspension soaks up the bumps in the road. There is a system of bushings, washers, and bolts that connect the ends of the bar to the suspension and then there are usually two rubber bushings that wrap around the bar and connect it to the body. End link bushings take the biggest hits and over time can become flattened, deformed, or otherwise deteriorated. Once the end links lose their grip on the ends of the sway bar, it won't be able hold things together as well as it should.

Factory Fresh

Although replacing the end link bushings or the end link assemblies is an easy job, doing so can bring back a noticeable improvement in handling, especially if the bushings to be replaced are worn. It may be worth considering an upgrade to better bushings when the time comes for replacement. While the people with engineering degrees designing vehicle suspensions know exactly what they're doing, the same can be said about the people with calculators in the accounting departments of automobile manufacturers. Unfortunately this often means that saving half a cent on the rubber compound in each end link bushing of each vehicle rolling off of the assembly will lead to the bushings wearing out a little sooner than they should.

Replacement rubber bushings will work just fine but it may also be worth considering an upgrade to urethane, which is impervious to grease, road grime, and other nefarious agents of wear. Another plus to switching to urethane is that the compound is often a bit stiffer than rubber and can add a greater degree of lean prevention in the corners. Since urethane bushings themselves are stiffer than rubber, the bar cannot deflect as much under cornering and, of course, less deflection translates to less body lean. New rubber bushings can give the same improvement since, over time, stock rubber bushings can deteriorate, become compressed and lose their grip on the sway bar. Rubber or urethane, the important thing is that when it comes to end link bushings, new and round is definitely better than old and oblong. Replacing the end link bushings or assemblies can bring back handling performance that tends to get lost over the miles.