I have an 01 Sable 104000 miles it has been making a very obvious clunk sound from the front end everytime we hit small bumps at low speed. from everything I've read so far it sounds like the front sway bars. From the discreptions these are plastic, run vertical, and are about 8-12 inches long? My question is this should I be able to rotate these quite easely with tires on the ground. because I can do this. also if I jack the front end up they do move but not near as easy and near as much. help.............

 

No the sway bar is metal and connected to both end of your suspension by end links. and attached with bushings to the frame. Should have one in the rear also. If your hearing a noise going over bumps I check underneath if anything is loose, maybe push the car up and down and have someone listen to see if you can get the noise it to repeat itself. If your sway bar is broken it could perhaps make a noise. They are easy to fix, but I doubt it is that. Could be worn bushing on other suspension parts, shock or strut problems, I just try to localize it and work from there. Good luck.

 

what i think you are mentioning is the stupidly designed plastic sway bar link pins/arms...

 

wow, plastic link-rods? some people's children. Almost as bad as the Chevy cars with the six cylinder engines that had timing gears... direct drive the camshaft via gears to the crankshaft. Good idea. Except Chevy in a fit of cheap-osity, decided to make one gear metal and one of nylon. People would find little monopoly house looking bits of plastic in the oil... the teeth off the gear. Shortly thereafter the engine would jump time or quit entirely.

anyway if that's what FoMoCo used.. I'd find something else to replace them for future reliability.

Cabby