Time to replace rear sway bar in awd compared to install front sway bar in awd?
 

I inquired for the cost to get my awd small sway bar to the regular rwd swaybar. They accidentally quoted everything for replacing the front swaybar, including parts and labor.

I informed Infiniti of the accident and they corrected the cost of the parts to the rear swaybar. However kept the same labor hours of 3.5 hours. Does the rear swaybar really take as much time to replace as the front sway bar?

Both front and rear sway bars take no more than about 45 minutes each, less if you use a lift. A dealership bills for the labor hours that the book tells them bill, no matter how long it actually takes. A good tech can do both in about an hour on a lift.

So it is indeed the same amount of time for the rear as it is for the front?

Just about because I had to drop my axle-back to remove it.

If you have a set of basic tools and at least a pair of jackstands/floor jack you can easily do it yourself, even if you do one end at a time.

The front was a piece of cake once you get the plastic engine cover off (14-20 10mm bolts). Actually, it might be more challenging with awd due to the transfer case.

The rear, while less parts to remove was challenged by having to snake the bar around the diff/exhaust. Either way, unless you got some strange exhaust in place, it should be doable without having to drop it (the exhaust). Actual work is minimal. Most time is spend jacking the car or getting that plastic cover off.

I preferred to do it this way because less chance of having an exhaust leak after being opened.

So you can actually remove and install the rear sway without unbolting anything from the exhaust?

I actually haven't done my sways for this very reason because I didn't want to deal with chancing a leak after unbolting the exhaust somewhere.

It has been almost 4 years since I did this, but I want to say yes. I still had the stock exhaust on when I did mine. I'm 99.9% sure I didn't touch the exhaust. If I did, it was just loosening the rear most hangers (just inside the rear bumper) to lower the tail pipes slightly.

Yep. One hour labor is likely, reasonable and fair.

I just did my rear sway bar last month on my friend's lift. It takes an hour from driving the car on the lift to finish. I have the stock exhaust and you will need to drop it to get the old bar out and new one in. All I did was removed the hangers and then removed the rear muffler supports under the bumper, which allowed the exhaust to move down enough to fish the bars in and out. I could have probably shaved another 15 minutes off the install if I had a newer car or didn't live in a climate that uses salt in the winter. I made sure to soak the exhaust bolts and let them sit with PB blaster to ensure they didn't break.

My rear sway cost 40 bucks to have installed at a shop along with my gtspec m brace. My exhaust did not need to be dropped and both took all of 15 minutes. Not sure on the front