sway bars or strut problem

[camry786]

My 2002 camry has been driving poorly the last few months with extreme swaying on freeways on turns and high winds. When I took it to Toyota a while back they said they needed to replace the rear sway bar bushings. Sounded right but at the time to avoid all the costs with other repairs, brakes etc, I put it off. Now I took it to the local mech and he says he cannot see anything wrong even after driving and where toyota found a rear seal leak as well he did not pick up on this. He gave me the option of doing the repair but cannot guarantee that would fix the problem.Wondering if I should take it back to toyota or just do it now but would like some feedback or input on this

[Mike Gerber]

"When I took it to Toyota a while back they said they needed to replace the rear sway bar bushings."

This would have been the first thing I would have checked when you talked about swaying on the freeways. This is something easy to check yourself. Jack up the entire rear of the car and support it safely on jackstands. Now go under the rear of car and grab hold of the rear swaybar and try to move it side to side. If you can move it side to side easily, the bushings are shot and need to be replaced. This is something that is fairly easy and cheap to replace. You can get aftermarket busing for $10-$15 each. You can install these yourself. It's only 2 bolts on each side to remove them, although they can be a bit rusty if you live in a rust belt state, so have some good penetrating oil like PB Blaster (not WD-40) handy and spray the 2 bolts on each side liberally and wait about half an hour. Then try to loosen those 2 bolts on each side. Pop in the new bushings and reinstall and tighten the 2 bolts on each side. If you choose to take this in to have them replaced, figure on a half hour of labor plus the parts cost.

In the future it is best to include mileage on the car when asking for assistance.

Mike