05/04/2011 - H&R Sway Bars

Sway bars are part of a car's suspension system. Their purpose is to try and eliminate the body roll of the car when turning or doing some high speed cornering. If you are inside the car, you would know that your body gets pulled toward the outside of the turn, i.e you turn right, your body is pulled to the left. The same thing is happening to all the parts of the car. Roll is bad. It tends to put more weight on the outside tires and less weight on the inside tires, thus reducing traction. It also messes up the steering. Ideally, what you would like is for the body of the car to remain as flat as you can through a turn so that the weight stays distributed evenly on all four tyres, and this is where sway bars come into effect.

For illustration purposes, the green bar is the sway bar on this car. Also known as an anti-roll bar.

H&R sway bars are made from the highest tensile strength available making them strong/durable and are 100% made in Germany to exacting standards. Each bar is cold-formed. The bars are heat treated, shot-peened and powder coated. Unlike some other sway bars where the bushings are made from polyurethane composite and require re-greasing every 15 to 20,000kms to stop the sway bar from squeaking, the H&R sway bars include the bushing featuring a special urethane/teflon composite that eliminates the need for lubrication, which means no squeaking and no maintenance problems. These are also solid sways and not hollow sways, which means they are thick and durable and would absorb and eliminate the majority of the body roll and increase the stiffness. The factory OEM sway bars are thinner and are hollow. The H&R front sways are 24mm and the rear sways are 26mm in thickness. There are aftermarket companies who specialise in hollow sway bars but the main reason for choosing a hollow sway bar over a solid bar is weight savings mainly and would probably be more suited for a dedicated track car. For a daily driven street car like my Golf R, this wasn't necessary.

H&R Front Sway Bar for the Golf R : 24mm

H&R Rear Sway Bar for the Golf R : 26mm

I had purchased these sway bars from ECS Tuning and had them installed at Ramspeed. Andrew booked me in and soon enough, the old stuff was out and the new stuff was in. Initial driving impressions was that it had drastically reduced the car's body roll when turning. With the Golf R being an AWD car, it has grip to be able to just fling it into a turn. However, the bodyroll was still there. I went to my usual proving grounds around near my place to test it out and the difference was night and day. Even without complimentary supporting suspension mods like coilovers or lowered springs/shock combo, the difference was huge. The turn in was nice and flat and crisp and the tendency that the Golf R had to understeer was eliminated. Thoroughly impressed. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of my sway bars on the Golf R, nor did I take any "in-progress" photos. 

It is definitely one of the first things one should consider when changing the suspension of a car. It changes the feel of the car dramatically.


ECS Tuning provides parts for most European car marques. If you would like to purchase something for your car, please visit :

ECS Tuning
http://www.ecstuning.com