Samuel Torres

So I am learning to drive manual and I recently purchased a Pontiac Firebird trans am And Is has a quite a bit of mods on it and has a lot Of horsepower around 560HP to the wheels I was driving on the street around my house and accidentally went to fast over a dip And broke the rear end sway bar bolt I went to a mechanic and he told me he would Weld it to be stronger and wants to charge me 225 I don't know if that is a fair price and if welding it is a good idea or should i just get the bolt replaced . All answers would be Appreciated thank you I am in southern California

rising_4rm_ashes

iTrader: (2)

Any pics?

warriorpluto

iTrader: (2)

Find another mechanic. A true mechanic would extract that bolt and replace it with another and it should be under $100 to do. You must stay up north?

sokr915

iTrader: (3)

Stock or aftermarket sways? You can usually just buy the endlinks for $20-30.

http://www.ws6project.com/user_stor/catalog/sway-bars/

sjsingle1

iTrader: (1)

so the guy you bought it from spent $$$$$ on the engine but not a dime on the suspension ????

ghardester

Even heavy duty sway bar link pins are about $20 or less. There are 2. If the old ones are hard to get off just cut them off with a Sawzall or angle grinder. Two 14mm wrenches, tighten until the bushings slightly deform/squish and you are done. I just replaced mine and didn't take more than 1/2 hour. The mechanic is charging you for at least 2 hours of shop time and a hell of a mark up on parts.

Welding is not a good idea. What do you do the next time you want to replace the links? Cut the whole sway bar off?

Samuel Torres

I did find another mechanic charged me only 25 . Thanks for the reply

Samuel Torres

Well actually it has a full racing bmr suspension . Only that im learning to drive manual on this beast . And blasted off on a stop sign and hit a dip real hard and broke the bolt on the end link . Easy fix only 25 bucks .

Samuel Torres

Yea actually got the bolt replaced for 25 bucks . Would of done it my self just don't have 2 really low jacks . Car is lowered . That's what I thought my self when he said he'd weld it. Thought it was a little bit bs . So asked around other mechanics told me that dude Is crazy don't do that . Car is running perfect no problems

themealonwheels

iTrader: (20)

You may have bigger issues if you break an end link on a simple street launch. Possibly due to poor geometry associated with lowering it? You should try and find a root cause here, or I expect you'll have to replace it again. Pics would help, but you should be looking at how the rear end and sway bar sits when on the ground to see if there's a weird angle on that link, or maybe a bad LCA/PHB bushing allowing too much travel.