Originally Posted By: Trav
Originally Posted By: Ethan1
This car needs a cradle for the same reason that the Corvette was totalled over a 1" crack: every authority in the auto industry forbids welding cast aluminum structural members.
I wouldn't buy into that Corvette story too much, there is more to that story IMO than is being told.
The part tunnel cost almost 8K and even if the labor was 3x that its still not enough to total a 60K new car.
I cant see why the insurance company would pay 2x the money out when the don't have to.
I can see not welding a control arm or its mounting parts on the cradle but a sway bar bracket is not really a high stress part in comparison, the bar itself takes most of the stress if the form of torsion just look at the brackets and the small diameter bolts that hold them, they are very low strength parts.
Trav,
What breaks the swaybar bracket is a jolt to the suspension. My customers wife hit a large pot hole going about 45MPH. The other customer drove over a concrete wheel stop in a parking lot. There couldn't be much stress on the welded bracket because of how poorly the factory weld is. It's been 2-3 years since I welded these and I haven't heard back from them. However my weld was much stronger so I didn't expect to hear from them.