rear sway bar

i have been thinking of taking it off and leaving it off. i know alot of you have done this. i have a 97 and it is a dd and i drive on the highway alot up to 70-75 mph, will this afect my handling. i just would like some more flex and still want it to be safe for my kids and i do drive on the highway. i know i would have to be a little more careful not to make sudden sharp turns at high speeds but i dont do that now, its a xj not a sports car. i would just like to know how yours drives and handles with no rear sway bar.
THANK YOU!!:helpme:

The first thing I did was take my rear one off. No effect. Can do 70mph with no problem. I also run no front one for time being, and it does handle crappy with out it, but it isn't a race car, so id expect it to. Ditch the back one, its small and worthless IMHO.

Well I personally havent done it but thats just cause Im lazy.
I know a lot people have taken theres off of their DD's and they just drive normally and its fine. Its not like taking it off is going to automatically make you rollover, just dont try to drift on dry land and you'll be fine.

Very noticeable. Especially with your front swaybar removed, you'll have a lot more flex.

its true, take it off and leave it off. the leaves really dont sway left to right at all so you wont notice any handling issues, but u will see an immediate increase in your flex. i have also removed the front swaybar, but i recconect for long trips for safety purposes. the rear, i leave off..
always

i tend to hit 90 at times on the highway without any sway bars and its fine....just dont let go of the wheel!

With no or light loads removing the rear bar may improve over all handing.
If you tow or really load her down. You may want to retain the bar and look for some QD for it. They make them for the TJ I have read in a earlier post.

The rear sway bar is so light duty its almost useless. I removed mine and couldn't even tell the difference. Also, use the mounts for BPE's (shock, bar pin eliminators).

mine didnt come with one but I felt huge on road handling improvement as I got one ( cornering speed impoved, decrease roll over tendancy and better braking) but offroad it felt a little bit harder on the unibody.

are there any rear discos out there???

karim_gabra said:

are there any rear discos out there???

Click to expand...

dont believe there is, most of us dont street race our xjs so we dont need the rear bar.


Toss it and forget about it.

karim_gabra said:

are there any rear discos out there???

Click to expand...

ZJ might work. Not shure though you would have to talk to a manufacture to se what they think.

You'll never notice it.

Mine's gone. Don't even notice it gone.

For XJs (atleast 97s like mine) that came with the UpCountry suspension package they didnt even have a rear sway bar and thats the way it came from the factory! im 20 and i got my XJ at 16 and i drove it like any new 16 y/o male driver would.......like a crazy ass haha but i didnt find it to be unstable at all in handling infact i think factory ZJs with front and rear sway bars handle like sh*t soo much body roll. and actually when i put my 3 inch lift on i think it handles even better i take turns harder and faster than i ever did with it factory lets face it factory suspensions on jeeps suck the ride aint all that great and they handle like sh*t i think lefts ride the same as factory maybe just a tade bit more harsh and handle 20 better most of the harsh ride from lifts arent that much from the susupension but from the off-road tires we put on them. i have a friend with a 2WD 4Runner that has nothin done to the suspension at all and he put on a set of 30x9.50xR16 BFG All-Terrains on and it rides almost the same as my XJ with 3.5 inch lift (i went up half an inch since i first put the lift on) and 31x10.50xR15 BFG A/Ts. anyway there is my 2 cents. moral of the story rear sway bars on an XJ are useless and a waste of money, parts, and metal

thank you everybody!!!!!

I had always thought rear sway bars were for cosmetic purposes only? I mean I saw the one on my buddies MazdaSpeed Protege painted bright orange with matching poly bushings... my first thought was to strip, clean and paint mine too...
after taking it off to do just that I lost it... life has been so much more rewarding without it.

I wouldn't have noticed my rear swaybar was missing if I hadn't removed it myself. Just ditch it.