Just yesterday, I got a nice letter from Toyota explaining the 2006 to 2011 'recall of a recall' - aka Safety Recall C0J / CSJ - how nice.
Today, I backed out of the driveway and heard an awful clunk - almost like a rock hit the undercarriage. I pulled back into the garage and took a look around and found that the end of the sway bar on the drivers side has broken off. I hope it's not related to the other issue, but certainly is a corrosion related problem.
I've not seen any recalls for this in the system - Has anyone gotten this fixed under warranty?
That's the rear sway bar end link. Lots of topics about that part breaking on this forum. Pretty common occurance as you say. Bad materials and/or bad design IMO.
I just broke the passenger side sway bar link as well, and had to pay to have it replaced. Now I received my recall notice (CSJ) for the rear suspension arm in the mail. The two are not related?
Not mechanically, no. The sway bar just controls body roll, and if it breaks it just makes noise and the car might seem to lean more in turns. Other than that, no harm.
But a broken suspension arm/tie rod is much more serious because they directly affect the attitude and attachment of the wheel, and could cause a serious wreck.
I had a sway bar end link break a few months ago. I replaced it with the MOOG (Part # K750257) from RockAuto (search for a 5% discount code), which was far beefier and has a built in zerk fitting. As a bonus, it was far cheaper than the OEM part.
I just replaced both rear end links at the same time, unbolting the back half of the exhaust was helpful for removing the end link on the passenger side.
I just replaced both rear end links at the same time, unbolting the back half of the exhaust was helpful for removing the end link on the passenger side.