AT Sway Bar Woes (long)

["Rich Garrett"<jrgarre@uswest.com>]

[rant alert]
Allright....Here's my experience with ther lovely and talented Autotech
hollow, front swaybar for the MKII.

Just to add weight (sic) to the generel impression  that seems to be running
around that they suck.....

I had a used one on mine for almost 9 months. I went through 4 sets of
mounting brackets, because the front ones kept breaking at the 90deg. bend, on
the front side. This got to be pretty irritating, since it cost me money
almost every time to get them shipped out.

I finally seriously questioned Autotech about the problem, and they were
essentially unresponsive, syaing that something either happened to the bar
before I owned it, or something happened to the car. Well, the car holds an
alignment and drives straight....  The bar however, *was* on a car that got
hit slightly, so ok, I'll bite.

I bought a new one, got it installed about 4 weeks ago and guess what? Busted
out the right front bracket in the same place within 3 weeks!! I drive the car
moderately hard, but no autox or anything since the new one was installed.

Another call to Autotech really made my day. I can return the bar for testing
on their jig, but that likely won't show any problems, since their bars are
all jig-tested before they ship. yippee. I got even more frustrated when they
told me they wouldn't take the bar back on return since I had installed it on
the car!! What th'??? How the heck do I know anything about the product if I
don't install it??

As a side note: the car's in the shop (getting tokicos and hor tech
springs!!!), so I had the alignment guy (who totally rules according to local
experts, Mannix, Wenzel, et al) take a look. His impression is that the
mounting brackets simply are significantly undersized for the bar. Makes too
much sense. Unfortunately, I can't really tell Autotech, "Well this random
alignment guy sez your mounts are too small."  The shope guys (Slipstream)
have been totally cool about the whole situation. I'm sooo glad to have them
in town!

So....I'm going to look at the Neuspeed and ABD bars as a replacement. Anybody
have any opinions on either? In the meantime, I'm going to work on Autotech to
maybe at least give me credit towards another purchase for return of the bar.
If I don't get anywhere......I'll have a darn near brand new AT swaybar for
sale! Any takers....???? >;->

I must also say that I'm pretty reluctant to buy anything else from Autotech
sicne they've been really not helpfull.

Sorry for the rant, but I figure the more information (experiences) the
better!

rich
'87 16v


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