Wheel broke apart from the car for no reason?

[INF3RN0666]

Hey

As a brief history, I had my car inspected 2 weeks ago for suspension and steering. Two different mechanics said the left ball joint was bad, and one of the mechanics said I also need control arm bushings, but the rest was fine. I had the LEFT ball joint replaced and the two bushings, according to the recommendations.

So I'm at a red light waiting to turn left. I hit 30 km/hr and just about completed the turn, and I hear a bang and skidding. At first I thought someone had hit me from behind. Then I realize my car won't move, and the transmission is making a gargling noise when I move shift stick to park. I step out of the vehicle to see my RIGHT front wheel out of place and the tie rod was broken off. It also looked like my axle was ripped out.

I had the car towed to my mechanic, which won't open till tomorrow morning. Now what do you think happened, and why out of nowhere? Do you think that the transmission jammed, causing too much strain on the wheel, which broke the tie rod? Or did the tie rod just break, and ripped out the axle as a result. What am I looking at in terms of repairs? The same axle probably won't bolt back on eh?

[UncleBob]

"out of no where"?

you were warned you had problems that needed to be fixed, and its "out of no where"?

OK......

Lug nuts come off because they weren't tight enough. You aren't very discriptive on what seperated from what. But if thats what happened, then the lug nuts were loose. As to why, well, maybe the last mechanic didn't get them tight enough.

Then again, maybe you should have taken the advice of one of the last mechanics and fixed your car. Hard to disect after the fact

[INF3RN0666]

Sorry man, I don't think I made myself clear. I did replace the parts that the mechanics said to replace.

I had the LEFT ball joint replaced and the two bushings, according to the recommendations.

The wheel is still attached to the hub, and the hub is still attached to the control arm. It looked like the tie rod broke, and the car dropped to the ground as the wheel turned due to the car's weight. What I don't understand is what would cause something like that to happen if the car was inspected twice by two different mechanics, and they said everything was ok. Or do tie rods randomly break even if they tested out to be ok.

How am I supposed to ever trust getting back in my car if suspension parts randomly break without any warning?

[UncleBob]

a tie rod breaking by itself won't cause an entire hub to seperate form the car. I have had more than a few cars come in with broken tie rods (driven, mind you!) come into my shop.

One of them, a Ford Explorer, tried accusing us of the failure, because we had inspected the truck the week before. He happened to mention in passing that he broke the tie rod while 4x4'ing

inspections can only pick up noticably bad components. Mechanics can't be omniscient no matter how good they are

[INF3RN0666]

The hub didn't separate from the car. For example, the steering wheel was straight. The left tire is also straight. But the right wheel is turned 60 degrees to the right, and the car is leaning to the right. The funny thing is, I was doing 30 km/hr. I don't blame the mechanics, but man, I don't want to go through that again. Imagine if I was going 100 km/hr on the high way... I do my best to keep up with repairs, and if I ever feel anything that's off, I take it in and get it checked out, or look things up on the net. But, this was without warning!

[UncleBob]

I see, so you simply had a broken tie-rod and the car stopped when it wasnt' able to track with the other wheel.

I would hope that a tie rod that close to breaking was noticably bad before it broke, but sometimes things don't show themselves as we would prefer. Life can be unpredictable.

[INF3RN0666]

Man, I still have no clue what went wrong. The mechanic bolted on a new axle, and put all the old parts on how they were, and away I go. Turns out my parking brake is seized now though. I'm gonna have to do something about that...Any suggestions? And how can a mechanic just bolt on a new axle and say that everything is fixed? What was wrong in the first place?

[greenmonkey]

about 2 years back my friend had a 93 ford explorer and had his wheel fall off as well. he said that the older explorers had a problem where the grease in the axle wheel had heated up so much that it burned through his axle resulting on the wheel coming completely off and rolling into a ditch,

[2.2 Straight six]

you said you had the left ball joint and bushing replaced.

but the right wheel had the problem. so i'm guessing that the repairs aren't at all related to the problem. and it was probably time for you to replace the right hand ball joint, but it wasn't visibly worn.

when you say a new axle, what do you mean? unless it's a big 4x4 or truck, you don't really have an "axle" up front. you'll have an independant front suspension. so he probably just bolted on a new ball joint and such and that's it.