How to Diagnose a Bad Sway Bar Link - TRQ

If you're driving on the road in your vehicle and you're hearing a rattle noise or a knocking noise after you go over bumps, you may need to check for a loose sway bar link. Most vehicles have a front and rear sway bar. That's this part here.

This connects the two sides of the suspension together, it helps limit the travel, and when you go around the corner it gives you a more planted feeling, because each side of the suspension is independent. So this bar actually kind of connects them and helps limit body roll. So that's why they're either called roll bar or sway bar, but they are connected, on this vehicle, to the upper suspension arm, to the sway bar, with a link.

If the link breaks, like this one has, become loose and will start making a knocking noise as you go over bumps and it needs to be replaced. Basically, what this is, is a ball and socket. This is a plastic one. It's pushed through this metal outer part and it's got this plastic little rivets that are either squished down or melted over when they manufacture this, and then it's sheered of at this points, so it actually popped right out. It's pretty similar in design to this one. So this part, the plastic cup, has actually stayed in the metal, but here you can see the ball and socket that fits inside there. That's what allows it to move around and have some flex, just like that. So this one here needs to be replaced.

As we go down the road and hit bumps, even though I popped this back on, it will come right back off and then it will knock, as your suspension bounces up and down. Now that you know what to look for with a broken sway bar link you can get your brand-new TRQ parts from 1AAuto.com.