It’s kind of a no brainer that adding a sway bar to a truck without factory installed sway bars will often help reduce body roll, sway and improve handling. What about replacing factory sway bars with aftermarket sway bars, will it improve the ride? Is it worth the time and money? We decided to test it out on a 2009 Yukon 1500 XL 4x4 by replacing the factory installed sway bars with new front and rear Hellwig sway bars.
We did a little measuring to check for differences and the Hellwig sway bars are beefier than the factory installed bars. The Hellwig sway bar also looked a lot nicer, higher quality, and more durable with its powder coated finish.
We measured the diameters of the sway bars.
Front Yukon factory Sway Bar: 1.38 inch
Front Hellwig Sway Bar 7685: 1.50 inch
(8.70 % larger diameter)
Rear Yukon factory Sway bar: 1.11 inch
Rear Hellwig Sway bar 7686: 1.25 inch
(12.62 % larger diameter)
Both sway bars are no drill installations, so the install can be done at home with simple hand tools. Basically, all you have to do in unbolt your front and rear factory sway bars, grease the bushings and bolt up the new sway bars in their place. The only problem we ran into was bolting up the D-bushings. We did have a little trouble getting the bolt holes to line up and had to use a pair of channel locks, pinch the bushing, and install the bolts. It was a minor hang up, but worth mentioning.
We had both factory sway bars removed and the new Hellwig sway bars installed in under 2 hours. We did have the advantage of working in a pit, so a safe estimate would be about 2 hours for an at home install. 
We hit the highway after the install and were pleasantly surprised with the results. I have to admit, we were a little skeptical and weren’t sure we would be able to notice any big difference, but the sway bars turned a good ride into a great ride. The difference in body roll and sway reduction was most notable when changing lanes on the highway and the elimination of roll when getting passed by a semi going 70 mph was impressive. We look forward to testing it with a trailer and full load of gear as we think the results will be amplified.
Yes, the 2009 GMC Yukon has factory installed sway bars, but if you’re looking to further reduce body roll or sway and turn a decent ride into an excellent ride, we found that adding Hellwig sway bars is one of the quickest and most cost effective ways to do so.
You can order Hellwig sway bars by calling 1-800-358-4751.