Crossposted from the Canada forum, this is a 2010 R3:

Tonight, we were re-tightening the bolts holding the brackets for the bushings of the rear sway bar after installing the racing beat rear sway two weeks ago. A loud knocking sound had started when the car goes over bumps or starts from rest.

Upon beginning the tightening of the top driver's side bolt, while applying barely any force at all, the bolt snapped. There was no excessive force and we were using a torque wrench.

I have no idea what to do, I was thinking of taking it in to ajax mazda tomorrow to get them to repair it. Do you think it is safe to drive?The other option is to remove the exhaust to get access to the bolt and drill it out but I don't have time to do that since this car is my daily driver and I have limited experience with this stuff.

Any thoughts on a course of action or how much a repair would cost? The passenger side bracket tightened just fine and now the driver's side is being held by pretty much just the endlink.

We removed the bushing since after lowering the car, the bar moved and started to warp it.

Argh, cheap bolts


edit: should I just remove the entire rear sway and endlinks? it looks like if the endlink rotates enough, the bar is going to smack the heat shield.

 

It has happened to me aswell.

Take down your exhaust and drill it out, it is really easy.

You can drive your car without the sway if you want but dont forget to disconnect your light leveler.

 

Yeah, I didn't have time to do it myself so I had the shop take care of it when I went in for my oil change.

Everything is working perfectly now, thanks for the ideas.

 

Are those bolts replaceable? Are we talking about the part that connects the bushing clamps to the frame? I always wondered what the course of action would be if you overtorqued the nuts and ended up breaking the bolts.

 

They aren't really bolts. They seem to have a circular head and are welded in place. Ran into this same problem on a friends car and will likely have to drill them out on mine also.

 

They are welded from the backside.

But they where not hard bolts to drill out, most work is uninstall/reinstall exhaust.

 

I had thi happen to me also!!!! WTF is wrong with those bolts???

I dont htink they need to be "Drilled out" - the mechanic i took it to just heated them with a torch a bit and hit with a hammer and they popped out. You can put a new bolt in there with a nut.

But a huge PITA, and totally surprised me....

 

Another one bit the dust. Drivers side bolt holding in the strut tower bar. One of six so this one is meh. I might consider fixing it when I put coilovers in this spring

 

haha, get an torque wrench.

 

I was using one

 

How in gods name are you guys snapping bolts left and right..... and what torque specs are you using???

 

it's a little concerning that the bolts snap so easily... I'll have to be careful if/when i ever start modding...

 

I overtorqued those suckers to 30ft/lbs once and rode like that and didn't break .... for reference it should be 18 in the rear and 22 in the front on S2's if i remember correctly....must have got lucky

 

Dam. Mazda makes them look good but gives yall plastic bolts... im suprised the bolts arent stamped with "Kinex" or something "Lego"