so I had pinks professionally installed with the hardened mounts four days ago locally. Next day I went out for a ride in the twisties. Took a hard turn to the left and heard a loud popping sound from my rear passenger side. Now I hear a sound like a spring creaking almost all the time. like a squeeky mattress...

Iv'e been patient as I was told that they have to settle...

so today I popped off the back seats. and low and behold, one of the three bolts holding the strut into place was sheared off and just sitting there!!!

I will contact the local installer and let em know before I go off on any rants and all. Should I be worried about long term damage here as a result of driving with the bolt sheared off for a few days?? Is it safe to drive slowly back to the installer 15 miles away?

This is why I paid to have it done rather than do it myself...

 

You will need to remove the shock/spring assy and press out the broken stud. Then get a new stud or press out the one from your old top mounts and press it in. Not that big of a deal.

Where are you located?

 

Located in Berkeley.

Yeah, I guess its not that big of a deal. But I paid a reputable Subaru shop to do it because I didn't trust myself to do it in less than a day. And now I am left with a higher level of distrust with the rest of the install.

Damnit. I shoulda done it myself.

 

Well, it is not a big deal. As long as that shop will fix it for you, its ok. ish happens.

 

went back and they took care of me on the strut top issue. but then I came to realize that they flipped the damn sway bar when they raised and lowered the car. Ended up with twisted up endlinks and scraped up control arms... when I went back to have the bolt issue fixed, they didn't even tell me that the sway bar had been flipped and had mangled the endlinks.

The reason I know that this is what happened is that I started hearing noises right after the spring install, I assumed it was the springs. When I found the broken bolt I figured that was it. BUT, now I come to find out that the broken bolt was the least of my troubles...

damn it...

props to subydude and his folks for hooking me up with some perrin endlinks quick.

Feeling a bit torn here. I think Gruppe-S is a great vendor with an awesome sales staff but I will never let one of their installers touch my car. The install seemed like a deal initially but ended up causing me a lot of annoyance to say the least. Lost 2 days of work and now I also need to replace the one of the rear alum control arm which is pretty damaged... I think the sway bar flipping is really a Subaru issue, but it'd be nice for installers to keep aware of this. Cmon now...

Thats what I get for not doing it myself... nuff said