Of Sway Bar Bushings and End Links

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Richard - 27 Mar 2006 16:44 GMT

When my 01 PT Cruiser started clunking down the road at about 50,000 miles I
picked up new bushings and sway bar links. It was a very easy job and not
too expensive.

Now my 04 Town & Country started clunking down the road at about 55,000
miles.

Chrysler sells an improved front sway bar bushing for about $6.00 each.
Unlike the Cruiser getting to the single nut and bolt on the driver's side
was a killer. It took much longer to change than it should have but I got
the job done.

I picked up a much improved pair of front sway bar links at NAPA. They were
expensive ($44 each). But getting the OEM set off the vehicle was worse then
I could have guessed. The nuts turn the bolt so you have to hold on to the
bolt. It has a Torx female area on the end which is quickly stripped out
(and you can only get to the one on the top). The is little room to hold
onto the back of the bolt. I wound up drilling out and sawing off the bolts.
There has got to be a better way to design these vehicles and its parts.
(All the replacement link sets abandon the Torx fitting for a place you can
grab onto with a lockwrench, etc).

I sure wish Chrysler considered ease of repair when the design these toys.
How do the repair guys do this job?

Richard.

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L, not -L - 27 Mar 2006 17:13 GMT

> When my 01 PT Cruiser started clunking down the road at about 50,000 miles
> I
> picked up new bushings and sway bar links. It was a very easy job and not
> too expensive.

My 01 PT Cruiser Touring (45,000 miles) is doing this; sounds like the
rear-end is going to fall out when I go over even a modest bump and, in warm
weather, squeaks like an overloaded hay-wagon. Not much noise from the
front, yet.

What brand replacement parts did you use, where did you get them and at what
cost? What are we talking, a couple of hours labor to replace?

Thanks

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Richard - 27 Mar 2006 17:37 GMT

> My 01 PT Cruiser Touring (45,000 miles) is doing this; sounds like the
> rear-end is going to fall out when I go over even a modest bump and, in
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>
> Thanks

One of my Cruiser's rear sway bar links actually snapped in half. Only OEM
parts are available for this application and that is what I used. I replaced
the front links and all the sway bar bushings with Energy brand parts. These
were ordered off the web and were not very expensive. $18 + $12 + $12

http://www.autotrucktoys.com/ptcruiser/Chrysler-PT-Cruiser-Bushings-Links-C625.aspx

At most a couple of hours.

Richard.

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RCSnyder - 28 Mar 2006 02:31 GMT

This is going to be a really silly sounding question but why did you change
both bushings and links? Wouldn't it have made more sense to replace one
and see if the problem was solved?

Bob

>> My 01 PT Cruiser Touring (45,000 miles) is doing this; sounds like the
>> rear-end is going to fall out when I go over even a modest bump and, in
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
>
> Richard.

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Richard - 28 Mar 2006 18:36 GMT

> This is going to be a really silly sounding question but why did you
> change both bushings and links? Wouldn't it have made more sense to
> replace one and see if the problem was solved?
>
> Bob

Not a silly question. The clunk was caused by worn out front sway bar
bushings at 55,000 miles. My experience with previous Chrysler mini-vans and
with a rear link on my PT Cruiser, is that the OEM sway bar links tend to
break. Thus, while I was going at it I picked up all of these parts. The
better NAPA front links looked so far superior to the OEM parts that I
thought I would change them out as long as I had the wheels off anyhow. If I
knew how difficult their removal would be I likely would have given this a
pass until they broke. The front PT Cruiser links came of as easy as pie,
but not the mini-van links.

Richard.

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