So while putting on my recently acquired S4 wheels & snow tires to see if they are balanced and take a few pics I noticed something. Turns out the rear sub frame near where the sway bar attaches is broken off on one side and the other has a crack also. When I saw this I almost cried and went inside to have a few shots of Capt. Morgan(seriously I love this car and have a ton of money into it) I don't have a quote on a repair yet but I have a feeling it will be somewhere in the $2000 range depending on parts.

Has this happened to anyone and what did you do and what did it cost? I can't sell the car for much in this condition and I couldn't sell it to someone knowing whats wrong.

I'd love to hear some ideas since I don't have a lot of money to work with and I go back to school in a month.

 

Holy crap man that sounds pretty serious. Could you get some pics? I'm not really sure if that'd be the sort of thing that can be fixed or not? My buddy had a Tacoma that the frame pretty much rusted out from under and he just got the rust cut out and had patches welded into the frame, kind of a hack job IMO

 

Sorry for the crappy pics I forgot to take them when I had the wheels off so I stuck my phone under there. If you are familiar with the sway bar mounts it broke right along there. There are two large bolts separate from the sway bar and the cracks started along there and spread out in multiple directions. The driver side corner totally broke off and the passenger side is starting to crack.

Driver side: sway bar bushing is to the left off the picture


Passenger side:

 

damn man, sorry about your unfortunate discovery. it is quiet rusty tho, did you notice any sounds or anything before?

on another note, the condoms are HILARIOUS

 

No noise or change in daily driving at all. Only reason I noticed is b/c I had the wheel off. I'm sure if I pushed it in the corners I could notice but I haven't done that in a while luckily.

 

holy crap man. contact AP-specialties, shokan.com or flip through the classifieds. you know the 21mm rear sway may have been the culprit. you should get a link that attaches the rear sway to the subframe. i think 034 sells those but they are a pretty penny

 

That would do it.. Waaaayy too big w/o reinforcing the frame.

You could do a repair.. it would require metal frabrication and welding, but it could be done. I'd take it to a hot rod shop and let them have a go. They do this type of stuff all the time.

 

It also looks pretty rusted. Hotckis is the only brand I know of that sells a rear bar with reinforcing braces.

I wouldn't repair that. You can never guarantee it won't happen again or that it's safe. Some states will fail a car during inspection if a welded subframe is discovered. Hit up a junkyard; you're not too far from Shokan. Buy the H-Sport sway bar with braces when you're done swapping the subframe.

 

My shop is going to reinforce the new sub frame with brackets when they put it in. I'm going to call H&R since there is no warning that I know of but I doubt they will take responsibility.

 

H&R will see rust... there's no blame once rust is involved. Unless this is a widespread issue (which it doesn't seem to be), H&R probably won't do anything. Good luck, hope you get the car is back on the road soon.