Broken Sway bar
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Hi Srpbep:
___I don’t know how to take the emotion you have shown but I can perfectly understand your being a bit peeved. I do want to thank you for bringing up the problem in the first place since it is not an isolated incident as shown by this threads responders. With the same sway bar spec and design on the 03’s, many of the newest X’s bars will probably suffer a similar fate? I can only hope Acura beefs up the sway bar or collar to sway bar weld so that no one will have to worry for their family’s or X’s well being in the very near future … As it stands, it appears as if Acura doesn’t have a newly designed replacement and is simply replacing like for like. This sounds like something Ford and GM would do?
___Again, thanks for creating the thread.
___Good Luck
___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.
___[email protected]
___I don’t know how to take the emotion you have shown but I can perfectly understand your being a bit peeved. I do want to thank you for bringing up the problem in the first place since it is not an isolated incident as shown by this threads responders. With the same sway bar spec and design on the 03’s, many of the newest X’s bars will probably suffer a similar fate? I can only hope Acura beefs up the sway bar or collar to sway bar weld so that no one will have to worry for their family’s or X’s well being in the very near future … As it stands, it appears as if Acura doesn’t have a newly designed replacement and is simply replacing like for like. This sounds like something Ford and GM would do?
___Again, thanks for creating the thread.
___Good Luck
___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.
___[email protected]
xcel,
The fact the link problem is being disseminated to the owners and awareness is growing is all the thanks that would ever be needed.
As to the "emotion", I know of a tragedy with the Explorer fiasco. The shame is that it was A TOTALLY STUPID LOSS because it (and others) were predictable. The link sure looks the same to me:
** Some significant % are failing.
** The failing unit harms handling at best.
** The failing unit is proven to cause blowouts (sounds way too much like an Exploder rollling over and killing people to me).
Hey things break ... that is life. BUT I would not go scuba or sky diving with equipment KNOWN to have a failure rate of 20% (or whatever it turns out to be). That's too much like suicide.
ps ... I really hope you are wrong on the "like for like" but I fear you are correct. Why on earth wouldn't Honda/Acura have addressed this by now? It's been going on for a long time now.
The fact the link problem is being disseminated to the owners and awareness is growing is all the thanks that would ever be needed.
As to the "emotion", I know of a tragedy with the Explorer fiasco. The shame is that it was A TOTALLY STUPID LOSS because it (and others) were predictable. The link sure looks the same to me:
** Some significant % are failing.
** The failing unit harms handling at best.
** The failing unit is proven to cause blowouts (sounds way too much like an Exploder rollling over and killing people to me).
Hey things break ... that is life. BUT I would not go scuba or sky diving with equipment KNOWN to have a failure rate of 20% (or whatever it turns out to be). That's too much like suicide.
ps ... I really hope you are wrong on the "like for like" but I fear you are correct. Why on earth wouldn't Honda/Acura have addressed this by now? It's been going on for a long time now.
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They are taking a risk that no one will have a serious accident as a result of a failed link. On the other hand, the failure rate of a parachute may be 0.0001% (disregarding the spare chute for argument sake) but only one has to fail to result in a fatality. I understand your concern, but would be more worried riding around in Firestone Wilderness (?) tires.srpbep said:
This thread has scared the bejeeze's out of me! I looked this morning under the X, in full whitecollar work getout, risking the dirt and grease while bending down, to make sure my wife will be okay driving the X. She flipped when i told her about this risk. Well, so far the links look perfectly good. I have my 7500 mile service due next week and plan on asking my dealer about this and Acura's response. thanks for the headsup that we get here from all you concerned X'ers!!!!
guys, I know I keep repeating myself, but this keeps bothering me alot. Either the rest of the country and our non-CA members WITH BROKEN S-BAR LINKS keep ignoring this thread or maybe it's a consiracy? 
Me going nutts over this... :bonk:
in the links for taurus and mauntaineer/exploder one of the reported causes for breakage was a cold weather - I can see how low temps can affect the weld (of course I WOULD LIKE a TITANIUM bar link crafted in one piece instead of any weld at all - well, I'm day-dreaming, bite me Acura! :moon: ).
Now, how about the heat? salt in the air? Damn it, I would really like to see how spread out this problem regionally... :8: Someone please prove me wrong, but it looks to me like Cali has most of the cases
Btw, by now I made it my weekly routine to crawl under my Gigi's rear - reminds me of a rectal exam somehow... :bootyshak:whip:
Me going nutts over this... :bonk: in the links for taurus and mauntaineer/exploder one of the reported causes for breakage was a cold weather - I can see how low temps can affect the weld (of course I WOULD LIKE a TITANIUM bar link crafted in one piece instead of any weld at all - well, I'm day-dreaming, bite me Acura! :moon: ).
Now, how about the heat? salt in the air? Damn it, I would really like to see how spread out this problem regionally... :8: Someone please prove me wrong, but it looks to me like Cali has most of the cases
Btw, by now I made it my weekly routine to crawl under my Gigi's rear - reminds me of a rectal exam somehow... :bootyshak:whip:
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Come on people go look and vote
Go Vote: http://www.acuramdx.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8384sgtglok said:guys, I know I keep repeating myself, but this keeps bothering me alot. Either the rest of the country and our non-CA members WITH BROKEN S-BAR LINKS keep ignoring this thread or maybe it's a consiracy?
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699 Posts
driving conditions
sgtglok has raised the question of what kind of driving conditions pertain to the vehicles with broken sway bar links.
Here are the conditions that pertained to mine:
** Broke at around 10,000 miles.
** The only "off-roading" the vehicle has ever seen is half-a-dozen or so times down a 10 yard, well maintained dirt road I have to use occasionally to get out of the day-care's parking lot. PLUS, driving once on a short stretch of dirt road and parking lot at Montana Del Oro near San Luis Obispo. I've taken my Honda Civic on MUCH WORSE stuff. This car has essentially been driven less than one mile off pavement. It's not what I would even classify as light duty off road stuff. I mean, this stuff could be handled by a golf cart, or a dolly carrying a refrigerator!
** Very little salt conditions. Here, I think time spent in salty air is more important than miles, so I'll estimate around 20 days in the salt air. No driving on the beach or in the surf.
** Southern California is made of hills. LOTS of hill driving (but all on paved roads like freeways).
** No "boy racer" maneuvers. No excessive cornering speed. I've never squealed the tires.
** Very little high speed excursions (defined as 90+ MPH).
In short, pretty benign stuff. You folks in snow country get a lot more salt exposure, and plenty of you have at least as much in the way of hill driving.
sgtglok has raised the question of what kind of driving conditions pertain to the vehicles with broken sway bar links.
Here are the conditions that pertained to mine:
** Broke at around 10,000 miles.
** The only "off-roading" the vehicle has ever seen is half-a-dozen or so times down a 10 yard, well maintained dirt road I have to use occasionally to get out of the day-care's parking lot. PLUS, driving once on a short stretch of dirt road and parking lot at Montana Del Oro near San Luis Obispo. I've taken my Honda Civic on MUCH WORSE stuff. This car has essentially been driven less than one mile off pavement. It's not what I would even classify as light duty off road stuff. I mean, this stuff could be handled by a golf cart, or a dolly carrying a refrigerator!
** Very little salt conditions. Here, I think time spent in salty air is more important than miles, so I'll estimate around 20 days in the salt air. No driving on the beach or in the surf.
** Southern California is made of hills. LOTS of hill driving (but all on paved roads like freeways).
** No "boy racer" maneuvers. No excessive cornering speed. I've never squealed the tires.
** Very little high speed excursions (defined as 90+ MPH).
In short, pretty benign stuff. You folks in snow country get a lot more salt exposure, and plenty of you have at least as much in the way of hill driving.
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Re: Driving Conditions
At least three of us here have had the linkage break under the same conditions - coming into a driveway at an angle where one rear wheel is compressed. I don't think this has anything to do with weather or geography. I am in flat Florida, an old man who has never engaged four wheel drive. Nothing but conservative driving on my part.
If any more of you know the conditions under which your linkage broke, you should post this information.
Mike A.
At least three of us here have had the linkage break under the same conditions - coming into a driveway at an angle where one rear wheel is compressed. I don't think this has anything to do with weather or geography. I am in flat Florida, an old man who has never engaged four wheel drive. Nothing but conservative driving on my part.
If any more of you know the conditions under which your linkage broke, you should post this information.
Mike A.
Just spoke to service dept. at my dealer: Hopkin's Acura in Redwood City. According to the service advisor, they have not had one problem of broken sway bars on the MDX. The advisor had heard of the problem with sway bars.
Sounds odd to me that they haven't had a single incident....
Sounds odd to me that they haven't had a single incident....
Folks , it is a bad WELD -- welds fail when they are not done properly
It is a fairly high level skill to do a good weld. I have seen LOTS of welds that are crummy in LOTS of places, from roadcrews cobbing together a set of girders (where I assume the concrete and bolted joints actually provide most of the strenght) to gate posts in my yard (where I called back the installers TWICE) to busted bicycle frames (more on that).
Basically without a CLEAN metal-to-metal JOINT (which often requires grinding, fitting and other time consuming prep) welds FAIL. One has to get good (you'll love this) PENETRATION of the welding wire/rod into the joint. Big uneven sloppy joints will gobble up the welding material, it will NOT be molten when it bonds the surfaces and POOF failed weld.
In the olden days (before inert gas welding) one could only use extreme heat to weld and than extreme heat limited the kinds of materials that were weldable. That is why brazing (using a low temp solder to join materials) was the method used for bicycle construction.
Anyhow, the reason I bring this up is a) to dissuade anyone from bothering to try and contract with some yahoo from re-weldiing the LINKS b) discourage the use of titanium alloy to replace the links c) give some perspective to what welding involves.
Here is a cached link to some othe best titantium welds around:
http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cach...logy/welding.html+"good+weld+"&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
It is a fairly high level skill to do a good weld. I have seen LOTS of welds that are crummy in LOTS of places, from roadcrews cobbing together a set of girders (where I assume the concrete and bolted joints actually provide most of the strenght) to gate posts in my yard (where I called back the installers TWICE) to busted bicycle frames (more on that).
Basically without a CLEAN metal-to-metal JOINT (which often requires grinding, fitting and other time consuming prep) welds FAIL. One has to get good (you'll love this) PENETRATION of the welding wire/rod into the joint. Big uneven sloppy joints will gobble up the welding material, it will NOT be molten when it bonds the surfaces and POOF failed weld.
In the olden days (before inert gas welding) one could only use extreme heat to weld and than extreme heat limited the kinds of materials that were weldable. That is why brazing (using a low temp solder to join materials) was the method used for bicycle construction.
Anyhow, the reason I bring this up is a) to dissuade anyone from bothering to try and contract with some yahoo from re-weldiing the LINKS b) discourage the use of titanium alloy to replace the links c) give some perspective to what welding involves.
Here is a cached link to some othe best titantium welds around:
http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cach...logy/welding.html+"good+weld+"&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
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Re: Driving Conditions
At least three of us here have had the linkage break under the same conditions - coming into a driveway at an angle where one rear wheel is compressed. I don't think this has anything to do with weather or geography. I am in flat Florida, an old man who has never engaged four wheel drive. Nothing but conservative driving on my part.
If any more of you know the conditions under which your linkage broke, you should post this information.
Mike A.
At least three of us here have had the linkage break under the same conditions - coming into a driveway at an angle where one rear wheel is compressed. I don't think this has anything to do with weather or geography. I am in flat Florida, an old man who has never engaged four wheel drive. Nothing but conservative driving on my part.
If any more of you know the conditions under which your linkage broke, you should post this information.
Mike A.
Re: Driving Conditions
It is useless to document the conditions.
Bad welds will fail.
Under the right conditions, with a bad enough weld, simply THINKING about the weld ought to cause it to pop...
(and you wouldn't have to be <a href="http://www.andrewtobias.com/newcolumns/990330.html">Uri Geller or the Amazing Randy</a>...)
It is useless to document the conditions.
Bad welds will fail.
Under the right conditions, with a bad enough weld, simply THINKING about the weld ought to cause it to pop...
(and you wouldn't have to be <a href="http://www.andrewtobias.com/newcolumns/990330.html">Uri Geller or the Amazing Randy</a>...)
mikejadams said:
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Re: Driving Conditions
Seems like a good idea to me to avoid those manuevers that are known to cause the breakage. I now come into my driveway very carefully. When the part is redesigned and the problem solved, I might change my behavior.
Seems like a good idea to me to avoid those manuevers that are known to cause the breakage. I now come into my driveway very carefully. When the part is redesigned and the problem solved, I might change my behavior.
Re: Re: Driving Conditions
I created a separate poll from msu79gt82's (to help him stop seeing the doubles... ). Let's see where we at:
http://www.acuramdx.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8516
I totally agree (yet I'll keep non-weld titanium bar replacement in the back of my thick skull) with reonv8r, but having no other knowledge or the specific condition that could cause a breakage, I can only rely on the observations, my own or the others. So far, most if not all the breakages reported are relative to CA area. I'm curious to hear from the people with similar problems from other regions. Please speak up, guys! I really hate the rectal...renov8r said:
I created a separate poll from msu79gt82's (to help him stop seeing the doubles...
). Let's see where we at:http://www.acuramdx.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8516
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Re: Re: Re: Driving Conditions
I'm not a welding expert, but it's obvious when you look at the failed part that the failure is the weld (by the way, I'm not sure it's not a resistance/spot type of weld). Like has been said, bad welds fail. I don't know how it could happen and the driver not hear it, so I don't think it would be a mystery. You'd know it was broken and exactly when it broke -- I sure did (only at the time I didn't know about the sway link problem, so I wasn't sure WHAT was broken).
So far, have we heard of any accidents? I think all we have is a slashed tire (not to belittle it). Have any of the people who've reported the problem also reported any difference in the handling? Don't get me wrong, I don't think the sway bar link does nothing -- the Acura engineers would cut it out, otherwise. I'm just saying it doesn't effect *normal* driving. It's only the emergency maneuvers that might be effected, and it's not like you wouldn't know if it was broken or not, so you could adjust your driving conservatively until you got it fixed. As if you were driving a regular truck, in other words.
What I'm trying to say is, yeah, it sucks, but it's not panic time.
My guess is, California has more drivers than any other state, as well as more MDX's.sgtglok said:
I'm not a welding expert, but it's obvious when you look at the failed part that the failure is the weld (by the way, I'm not sure it's not a resistance/spot type of weld). Like has been said, bad welds fail. I don't know how it could happen and the driver not hear it, so I don't think it would be a mystery. You'd know it was broken and exactly when it broke -- I sure did (only at the time I didn't know about the sway link problem, so I wasn't sure WHAT was broken).
So far, have we heard of any accidents? I think all we have is a slashed tire (not to belittle it). Have any of the people who've reported the problem also reported any difference in the handling? Don't get me wrong, I don't think the sway bar link does nothing -- the Acura engineers would cut it out, otherwise. I'm just saying it doesn't effect *normal* driving. It's only the emergency maneuvers that might be effected, and it's not like you wouldn't know if it was broken or not, so you could adjust your driving conservatively until you got it fixed. As if you were driving a regular truck, in other words.
What I'm trying to say is, yeah, it sucks, but it's not panic time.
Oh yeah, maybe? I have not been to West coast yet. But there are definetely more cabbies in New York than the rest of the world... at least it feels that way during the daily commute through NYC. There are not as many MDXes, but I rest assure you - it's alot!Rail said:
Comments regarding the above posts:
** California -- Hot spot for failures: I don't get why this would be the case. If anything, the "mild environment" should protect the link (e.g. no corrosive salt, etc.).
** Driving Style: Our X had low miles and only city/freeway. No offroad, no dirt, heck, probably 0 potholes.
** Not Hearing It Break: In our case, not a clue. Wife did complain about an occaisional "grinding sound" from the rear. This motivated me to look and voila. Also, read the other posts, others have only found it by looking (they also had not a clue).
** Danger Only in Emergency Situation: Well, we do know that it can cause a blowout (fact, not hypothesis). A blowout at 75 mph on a freeway would generate what I would call an "emergency situation".
** California -- Hot spot for failures: I don't get why this would be the case. If anything, the "mild environment" should protect the link (e.g. no corrosive salt, etc.).
** Driving Style: Our X had low miles and only city/freeway. No offroad, no dirt, heck, probably 0 potholes.
** Not Hearing It Break: In our case, not a clue. Wife did complain about an occaisional "grinding sound" from the rear. This motivated me to look and voila. Also, read the other posts, others have only found it by looking (they also had not a clue).
** Danger Only in Emergency Situation: Well, we do know that it can cause a blowout (fact, not hypothesis). A blowout at 75 mph on a freeway would generate what I would call an "emergency situation".
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