sway bar abuse
 

My rear right tire got stuck in a ditch on my way out of a friends drive way earlier today and was like that for about 20 mins. It was so deep that my rear left was pushed all the way up into the wheel well and the right was almost off the ground. I have a GT sway in the rear and was wondering how much they can take before it will warp? it feels like it pulls a little to the left now but hopefully im just being paranoid. Anybody know if that is possible?

I dont know know at what point the swaybar bends past the point of elasticity, but measure the rear fender gaps, are they the same? short of pulling out the swaybar to check it, I don't know.

I've never heard of anyone having an issue like that but I don't see why it won't be able to happen!

If the sway bar was connected to the car it can't be bent enough to warp the bar.

good to know. i did measure and the left was 1/8th of an inch lower but its really hard to find level ground in my parking lot. does the same apply to the front sway?

Yeah, I would guess that for either the front or back, you would hit the bumpstop before it went far enough to cause any damage to the swaybars.

You can corner a S197 hard enough to almost lift the inside front tire, which is nearly the same thing as dropping one wheel into a ditch far as the bars are concerned. And OE bars are pretty tough.


Money - your car could easily have been 'off' by an eighth of an inch side to side before any of that happened. Short of having careful 'before' and 'after' measurements taken on an alignment rack or a really good concrete slab, you can't really know if anything happened (never mind how much if anything did).


Norm

go to a mechanic or auto body shop and tell him to check it out for you. just to be sure.