Finally fixed the $400 clunk instead of trading in my 2008 wagon

So I had this rattling noise in the front end of my old Subaru for like 8 months. Every shop I went to said either "it's fine" or quoted me $900 for new struts. I got so sick of it I almost listed it on Craigslist for $1500 just to be done. Then last weekend my buddy who works at a dealer in Tacoma said, "check your sway bar links first, seriously." $38 for the pair off RockAuto, 45 minutes with a breaker bar and some PB Blaster, and the noise is gone. Car feels like it did 30k miles ago. I keep thinking about all the sleep I lost over that stupid clunk. Anyone else almost junked a perfectly good car over a cheap fix that took a Saturday morning?

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shaneb1618d ago

Gonna be the odd one out here but that $900 quote might have been the honest one. Sway bar links are the first thing any half decent mechanic checks, so if three shops missed that, you either need better shops or the clunk wasn't just the links. My buddy had a similar noise on his Outback, replaced the links, silence for a week, then the strut mounts went and it came back worse. That $38 fix can mask a bigger problem for a while, and then you're stuck on the side of the road with a coil spring snapped in half. Trading in a 16 year old wagon for $1500 would've been a mistake, sure, but cheap fixes that feel too easy usually mean you only fixed half the issue.