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New sway bars, new sound/smell - puzzled


SlightlyEvil

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Installed Cobb sways front and rear. Came with bushings, brackets, and reinforcements for the rear. Car handles great now and still goes like normal except...

 

when I put the window down I can now hear a quiet but pretty high pitch whistle, somewhat like a kettle on slow boil.

 

• Sounds SORT OF like rubbing, but its not very severe and I can't see anything that would rubbing.

• It varies somewhat with speed, but not entirely.

• Can't hear it at +60km/h because the engine/wind is too loud.

• If i kill the engine and coast in neutral the sound is still there so its not an exhaust leak or anything.

• Additionally if I swerve back and forth gently at about 40km/h the sound gets louder when I swerve right and stops when I swerve left.

• The smell is like a friction smell but I can't place it and it's not very strong. Not clutch smell, not brake smell, not exhaust smell... it's a new one to me.

 

Could it be bad alignment after the install? I thought maybe just tire squeal/squirm but it doesn't sound muchl ike that really.

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Installed Cobb sways front and rear. Came with bushings, brackets, and reinforcements for the rear. Car handles great now and still goes like normal except...

 

when I put the window down I can now hear a quiet but pretty high pitch whistle, somewhat like a kettle on slow boil.

 

• Sounds SORT OF like rubbing, but its not very severe and I can't see anything that would rubbing.

• It varies somewhat with speed, but not entirely.

• Can't hear it at +60km/h because the engine/wind is too loud.

• If i kill the engine and coast in neutral the sound is still there so its not an exhaust leak or anything.

• Additionally if I swerve back and forth gently at about 40km/h the sound gets louder when I swerve right and stops when I swerve left.

• The smell sounds like a friction smell but I can't place it and it's not very strong. Not clutch smell, not brake smell, not exhaust smell... it's a new one to me.

 

Could it be bad alignment after the install? I thought maybe just tire squeal/squirm but it doesn't sound muchl ike that really.

 

Ive never smelled a sound, except for farts.

 

But i suggest you grease your bushings, and make sure there is no rubbing on any axels, or Cv boots.

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Hahahah woops, fixed. (My car still makes smelly sounds though, but it always did haha)

 

Okay - How much is enough? The Cobb kit comes with 2 ring-finger-sized tubes and I used about half of each when done which seemed like a lot, but maybe and I should have used ALL of each one?

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Hmmm... I think that maybe that is grease coming out of a failing seal around the wheel bearing and seeping through the lug holes. Would explain why I hear the sound only when turning right (this was a left side wheel) and not when turning left - the left wheel would be loaded up only when turning to the right.

 

Make sense or am I reaching? Not sure bearing grease would work its way through the lug holes from behind the rotors...

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^ I'm no expert, but I have bearing grease working it's way through the lug holes on my 08 LGT (Stock wheels/suspension/brakes). I hope it's normal :)
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My VW used to do the same thing with my BBS's. Had a mech look at the bearings/hub and nothing was wrong. It turned out, that after washing my car, and cleaning off the break dust, that some water and dust particulates would sit around the lug nuts and then when I would drive, would make track marks similar to those. Hard to tell from the pic, but unless you have put your finger in it and it feels like grease... you may have something or nothing to worry about.

 

 

Also, if you put WD-40 on your lug posts, this could go the same thing.

If I had something important to say, I wouldn't tell you anyway.
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The sound has gotten louder though I noticed on the way home today. It's definitely the front left. I jacked the car up and tried to see if there was any play in the wheel but none in any direction. I'm not convinced it's the endlinks as someone suggested, but they are obviously not ideally suited to the meatier Cobb bars.

 

Drivers side front endlink (This is the side making the sound, not sure if it's the endlink)

http://www.chrishoare.ca/subpics/22042008263.jpg

 

Passenger side front endlink (for comparison, it looks the same as the drivers side, no sound on this side though)

http://www.chrishoare.ca/subpics/22042008268.jpg

 

Does a bearing on the way out always go fast? If that is the case this one seems to be going slowly...

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The driver's front wheel bearing is notorious for going bad, usually exhibiting a high-pitched whistling noise. There's a fairly large thread about it in the warranty issues sub-forum.

 

I had the same issue with my wheel bearing, but it was intermittent so it took quite some time for the dealers to diagnose and fix.

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+1 sounds like a wheel bearing. The only other thing to check is your CV boot to make sure there is no rip in it causing dust and dirt to get in there and failure.

 

I would keep an eye on those endlinks. The angle of deflection on them is more than it should be and may cause them to fail eventually. Cobbs front bar was designed shorter in length than it should have been and there have been failures with oem and aftermarket endlinks with this front bar. I thought cobb was shipping spacers with their front bars to lessen that angle.

 

The streaks on your wheel remind me of cosmoline from the factory.

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