News flash: I’m still in love with my car.

Since installing new shocks and springs (see previous post in the motoring category), I had this really infuriating grinding noise coming from the rear-end. It sounded like metal on metal, like the entire subframe was about to drop off as I motored down the highway. But I drove it anyway, and nothing ever fell off. (I checked and retightened all related bolts and nuts, so I wasn’t quite as reckless as it sounds.)

Today I set about to figure out what the hell the sound was, because it got louder with the colder weather. I went about disassembling the suspension, step by step, isolating the noise. Removing the strut did nothing, so next up was the sway bar. And bingo, it turned out to be the sway bar bushings. Now I had expected these to need re-lubing eventually. What I didn’t expect was for it to sound so atrocious. The bushings are polyurethane, and this noise definitely sounded like metal on metal.

Anyway, a quick stop at NAPA to pick up some lube, and the rest of the day spent disassembling / reassembling, and I’m good to go. The suspension is once again quiet, and the car once again feels like a solid German automobile. (Not a Korean econobox.)

I’ve got some miscellaneous photos on my camera, but I’ll need to go to a wifi spot to upload them to Flickr. Some time.