Mark: Hi it’s Mark from Top Local Lead Generation.
We’re here with Bernie Pawlik of Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver.
How’re you doing today Bernie?
Bernie: I’m doing very well.
Mark: So Happy New Year for we’re entering 2016 and I guess today we’re talking about
Range Rovers and sway bars.
What’s going on with Range Rover sway bars?
Bernie: Well what’s going on with Range Rover sway bars is that they’re excessively
complicated like a lot of things found on Range Rovers.
Most cars have, the sway bar, it’s basically a bar that connects one side of the vehicle
to the other on each axle, on each wheel on each axle is connected to reduce vehicle body
roll and on the Range Rover, like most cars it’s just a big steel bar with a couple
of connector links, but on the Range Rover they have the bar with the connector links
but there’s a very complicated piece in the middle so that’s what we’re talking
about today.
Mark: So what happened with this piece in the middle?
Bernie: Well basically it, it developed a leak, it’s a hydraulic system, there was,
what happened the vehicle was brought to us, there was a warning light on, on the dash
for the antiroll system which is another word for the sway bar antiroll, anti-sway bar,
there’s a warning light on the dash, did some diagnosis, found the, there’s a fluid
reservoir under the hood, we found the fluid was low and diagnosed it and found a leak
at the rear sway bar unit.
Now what this is, is basically a hydraulic coupling unit that joins the two, the sway
bar is basically broken into two pieces and there’s a hydraulic piece in the middle
that couples or decouples a unit at various rates depending upon what needs to be done.
We can get a couple of pictures going from here . . I’ll just get the pictures up . . . if
technology will allow . . there we go.
So we should be looking at a picture of a – that’s the complete sway bar removed
from the vehicle and the actual metal bar itself is typical of most sway bars you’ll
find on any car or light truck but the unit in the middle, that big round cylinder with
a few bits of fluid around it that’s the hydraulic unit.
You can see fluid around it, some of it spilled out when we removed the unit but most of the
fluid that’s on there is from a leak from a seal.
Now unfortunately you can’t just replace or repair this unit, you have to buy the whole
bar which is kind of something typical that you find on a lot of these vehicles, you have
to buy the whole bar, it’s a complete assembly and it is very expensive and to have one on
the front and one on the rear.
We’ll just hide the sharing this for a minute Mark: So what was the thinking behind this,
was this to give them some better kind of independent wheel control in kind of high
off road, high you know, going over big obstacles off road or something?
Bernie: That’s exactly why they do it.
Well there’s two reasons, one is you know, the sway bars kind of a I won’t say a dumb
piece of equipment it’s just a mechanical rod so depending upon whether you go one mile
an hour or a hundred miles an hour, it still works the same way, so having some hydraulic
some control over it affects the vehicle handling when you’re driving down the highway or
down a road, you’re going around a curve or corner you can have some control but as
you alluded to the biggest reason they do that is off road usage because if you can
decouple the sway bar all of sudden each wheel becomes a completely independent unit and
so if you go over a big pot hole or a huge rock, you know, that wheel can move completely
separate from the others.
Range Rovers are kind of neat, they have a dial on the console where you can program
in different road conditions so for instance if you’re going down a really steep hill
you can just turn the dial and it will just adjust the differentials and the transfer
case and suspension system for steep hills or if you’re on sand and snow it has a program
for that, you know, logging roads, gravel roads it has a program for that as well so
it kind of takes care of a lot of things, that’s exactly why they do it.
Mark: So the downside though is that it makes for a very complex system that wears out perhaps
prematurely or expensively.
Bernie: Yeah, and this Land Rover is a 2011, only five years old and I can’t remember
the kilometers on the car now but it wasn’t’ a lot, it was between the 50 to 100 thousand
kilometer range so not really high.
We don’t repair a lot of these but we do see them from time to time so any time you
add something to a vehicle it adds complexity, another thing to go wrong.
You just hope once it’s your vehicle it never does.
Mark: Other than that, Land Rovers are pretty good vehicles.
Bernie: Oh, they’re awesome, I mean they’re, I mean they are really, really, really awesome
vehicles, and another thing about them 99% of people just driving around the city or
maybe up to Whistler and back around here, but they are an amazing, amazingly capable
off road vehicle but I can’t blame anyone who buys one, I mean if you’re spending
over $100,000 on a sport utility vehicle with gorgeous paint and beautiful mag wheels and
low profile tires, I don’t think I would want to risk scratching the vehicle or denting
a wheel either but if you do need to go off road and you want to it’s certainly able
to do it, in style.
Mark: Great, so we’ve been talking with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive if you want
to book your Land Rover or Range Rover in for a service, these are the guys to call
604-327-7112 or check out their website pawlikautomotive.com.
Thanks Bernie.
Bernie: Thanks Mark.
Talk again soon.