[JohnM]

The reason that I'm writing this note is to share the experience that I've had with the addition of the stock rear anti-sway bar to my 2003 GT. It makes such a significant improvement in handling that I want to share the experience. Bottom line is: I strongly encourage this addition to the car.

My recommendation may only add fuel to the controversy of its not being installed by the factory in the first place. I've read most of the rear sway bar threads on several forums, and decided that I would just add the stock rear sway bar to my 2003 GT at my cost. Wyckoff Chrysler sells the complete kit over the net for $163. I didn't think that it was worth the mental anguish and hassle of fighting with Chrysler over this on an warranty basis. The $163 is not a large expense relative to the cost of many mods as far as I am concerned (just my opinion).

I made the decision to add the bar because I was not quite satisfied with the handling of the car. The ride was great, but in medium speed corners, turn in was vague and steering corrections were required to maintain a smooth line. It just didn't inspire me to corner quickly at all. Additionally, I noticed what I consider excessive sway in the car when it was loaded with 3 or 4 people.

I have some experience with the tuning of handling, and I was actually concerned that the addition of the rear bar might cause an increase in understeer, or push, and make matters worse. That was not the case. The addition of the stock rear sway bar transforms the handling of the car. It is now fun to throw it into turns - no more mid corner steering corrections are required, and you can actually add power mid corner and accelerate out of the turn. The tires have come into play as a limiting factor in cornering speed - which was definitely not the case before. Now I'm not talking about race-track cornering or extreme street driving, but just some normal enthusiastic cornering fun. There is a very small ride penalty for this handling improvement, but it is undoubtedly the best trade off for a performance improvement that I have ever made.

Installation is easy and straight forward, but it is not for the inexperienced mechanic. There is a tricky bit to deal with where the bar attaches to the rear of the twist-beam axle. Additionally, the Wyckoff kit does not come with 2 nuts required to attach the bar to the axle - and the chrylser parts chart does not show these parts. The 2 extra nuts required are 10 mm x 1.5 thread. A person with some mechanical skill can figure out the installation by taking a quick look under a car that already has the bar. Others should just let their dealer do it. I did the job on mine without jacking up the car or removing a wheel.

Once again, the bottom line to this story is that you should add the stock rear sway bar to the 2003 GT to make the car handle up to its potential. It's a shame that Chrysler left it off. It's up to you whether the cost issue is worth the fight with Chrysler of not.