Onion Posted June 10, 2013 Share Posted June 10, 2013 (edited) Driving along about 5-6 car lengths behind someone, when out of nowhere, their front right wheel just EXPLODES out of where its supposed to be. Both ball joints exploded, steering rack sheared, and the brake line tore. Here's the results... That wheel with all the suspension attached to it would be quite the thing to just hang up on a garage wall, lol. Edited June 10, 2013 by Onion Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony D Posted June 10, 2013 Share Posted June 10, 2013 Wicked Bitchin'! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazeum Posted June 10, 2013 Share Posted June 10, 2013 Wow, that's not supposed to happen. The knuckle should never have failed especially on steering arm! Especially also on not very stressed area. From a fatigue standpoint, it would most likely failed elsewhere. It would be interesting to know why (especially on straight road). Did they have a major imbalanced wheel? Improper torque on steering ball joint? Back in the days when I was suspension designer, such a failure meant a potential recall. The car is 15y old, not sure it still applies but something wrong happenned. Glad you did not hit the wheel with your car, it could have hurt somebody bad !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onion Posted June 10, 2013 Author Share Posted June 10, 2013 Here's the story behind it. The car belongs to a lady who broke one of the ball joints. She brought it to the mechanic to get fixed. The two guys that were in the car were test driving it to make sure it was okay. They give it some gas once, the transmission shifts real hard, and then the wheels blows off the car. The lady driving on a broken ball joint resulted in the weakening of all of the other suspension components, which all just failed at the same time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Domzs Posted June 10, 2013 Share Posted June 10, 2013 That's why people need to fix bad components on the car before they take out good components or none wear items . See it all the times . You wouldn't believe the number of cars that leave our shop with declined repairs and they're unsafe to be on the road . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony D Posted June 11, 2013 Share Posted June 11, 2013 Actually if you look at the failed part, you can see the area where the crack propogation started. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluDestiny Posted June 11, 2013 Share Posted June 11, 2013 So who exactly is at fault here? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onion Posted June 11, 2013 Author Share Posted June 11, 2013 (edited) So who exactly is at fault here? Car owner for driving on a bad ball joint. Edited June 11, 2013 by Onion Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josh817 Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 That's suppose to happen, its a factory quick change for when you're racing and you come in for new tires. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX82xKLZ2JE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kris.Is.Awesome Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 No nut on the lower ball joint... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alipatanjr Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 At least the tire and oil filter are ok? To be honest, I see that happen on a lot of fire trucks and material handling equipment. My theory is there was a crack or lack of lubrication somewhere that as the torque of the engine went up, it took the path of least resistance and caused the crack to completely snap, or the heat caused a break in the cast iron. At that point, if the wheel starts swinging around everywhere, it will take everything else with it nearby. Actually happened to my fire truck recently. =( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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