muscmp

i took my wife's 97 es300, with the 6 cyl. to just tires for oil change and tire rotation. they called me to say that it was way out of alignment so i gave them the go ahead. they said it would be done in 20 mins. when my wife and i got there 1 1/2 hrs. later, he hadn't even started the alignment. so we went to the mall and came back an hour later. he still had the car up on the jack. he said there was a problem with the car and showed me a bent "torsion bar". he said he could order the part for $130 and charge between $50 and $100, outside of just tires, to fix it. he said he had tried to straighten it but it needed replacement. i could see that it was a little bent. i think he should have called us prior to doing any work on this "torsion bar". he said we needed to get it done as the wheel could fold under creating a possible accident. i paid him for the service already done but did not agree to have him do the "torsion bar."

later in the afternoon, he left a message on the phone that he had found the part and i should give him a call to have it repaired. i checked via the internet for a lexus torsion bar but struck out. i did find sway bars that appeared to be the correct terminology for the part. the sway bar could be purchased via several sites such as ******************.com for less than $60.

this morning before my wife left for work, i looked under the car and noticed that nuts that held these sway bars together were real shiny while the rest of the sway bars were dark and dirty. so he may have checked/messed with both left and right sway bars.

i WILL NOT allow this man to ever touch my cars again as i don't trust him. however, i don't know that much about car repair myself so, finally, here are my questions: 1) how vital is it to get this repaired immediately? 2) isn't this a sway bar instead of a torsion bar?

any suggestions?

sorry about the length of this post but i wanted to proved as much vital information as possible.

thanks in advance.
mikeB.

sbmonkey

A sway bar, or anti-roll bar, connects your driver-side strut tower to your passenger-side strut tower. It's a solid metal bar that runs underneath the car. The connections on each side will look the same. The sway bar is connected to the strut tower with end-links, a metal bar with bolts on each end.

You can drive with a disconnected sway bar so it's not "vital" to replace it, but you should at some point because your handling will be degraded.