Just a quick note about my recent wrenching.

I had a noise in the front left suspension that was evident going straight with small and large bumps. I read on another thread that a likely candidate was the strut bearing. I went and bought said item. Turns out that it's a piece of plastic. It is only a spacer. It does no friction duty at all. $21 for nothing.

The real culprit was the sway bar end link. I had checked the end links, but couldn't find any play in them. The left one was easy to manipulate/move by hand though.

Bottom line- For front suspension noise, check the sway bar end links first. If you can easily move them around on their pivots replace them. Strut bearings are a waste of time.

Hope anyone with similar problems helps-

P.S. Notice the easily searchable title. I think mods should come up with some kind of format for thread titles so searching would be a little less hit and miss.

 

I've been trying to locate the front sway bar. I was looking for the ends and it isn't apparent. I have yet to lift the car. Is there a way I can locate the front bars without lifting the car?

 

I started having that noise 6 months after i brought my 02 maxima and the dealer did exactly that....they replaced the sway bar bushings and the noise was gone.....the dealer told me that it's a common problem on the max that's why they knew what it was right away