I just replaced the Sway bar bushings on my 98ML and I can tell you that it was well worth the 20 minutes and <25.00 cost for the bushing kit. I was having some front end noise when I went over Speed Bumps and offroad ruts. It was sort of a hollow squeek / clunk sound. I used a rubber mallet and wacked the sway bar a few times ( after I had read in these forums about sway bar bracket noise ) and was able to duplicate some of the noise. The bushings that I removed had "shrunk" slightly and and were literally as hard as steel. The new ones were solid, but flexable. I removed the sway bar and put in the new bushings. I used the torque specs provided in another post by Gilly ( thanks ). Test drive immediatly confirmed the fix. It was like night and day, with zero front end noise present. I wish I had done it last year.