Tie Rod failure while driving
 

Hey guys and gals, I wrecked my baby last night.Thankfully I was only doing 30 mph and was able to slow it to under 20 before impact, but I went through three 6" posts and coral boards.got the entire front clip drivers fender and damages all over the whole body. I went off the road, down an embankment, missed a concrete culvert, hit the fence 3/4 to parallel, went thru and then got it parallel to fence line.There is a solid thicket 8' past the fence with lots of old growth live oaks.My air bags also did not deploy.
I was pretty much on a straight away and there are small hills (Ocala Fl) and then it also has dips throughout. I came off the hill and the car jerked hard left into the other lane and then began pushing back across the other and off the road. I was standing on the brake, downshifted to 1 all I could do to steer the sled. I saw the driver side front tire 180* out rim facing rear.
I have had it jerk hard left a few times prior to this and it was random, never a thought until now. That is a cast aluminum part! The tow drivers aid he has saw it before and they were never as lucky as I was because they were at speed, or in a corner!
There should be a lot of my former forum members on here now.I was highly active in all forums prior to FB/IG. I am a master mechanic.I have never saw this before,never heard of it either on these cars.This car is everything ZL, except the supercharger, which is why Ipostedin this section. My question is, have any of y'all saw or heard of this? I may post a photo of the broken part,but those files eat up server space when not necessary. Thanks, and I am OK other than heartbroken.

Wow, what a story. Glad to hear you were OK & can't imagine this happening at operating speed. Did you buy this car new? Just wondering how the tie rod was damaged before it totally gave way

Good to hear there were no injuries. I've been on this forum for years and have never heard of this failure before.

Glad you are ok. What year and how many miles on the car?
I have never heard of that either.

I've seen this happen to other cars, like a beat up 98 Accord. I was heading home and the car was sitting in the middle of the right lane with the driver front rim facing the rear like you described. Luckily they were slowing down to turn into the neighborhood so no injuries Glad you are okay!

Tie rods I believe are cast iron not aluminum, I don’t think the aluminum could take the stress of the steel ball/bearing inside it, it would be too soft. An then again I could be wrong. An glad your ok the car can be fixed or replaced an understand your heart break.

Gatorhead, how do you know that it broke before the accident and not during it. Don't listen to Tow Truck Drivers!

I have one question. How fast were you really going?

Why would a person downshift to 1st if they were trying to stop? A master mechanic takes instruction from the Jr towtruck helper. Oh. It was randomly jerking hard to the left but the master mechanic didn't even look to see if something was loose or broken under the front? Is it April 1st? I thought it was Thanksgiving not April Fools day.

I smell BS. Insurance scam.

Same here. Or did you ever notice how it's always the fault of someone else or something else ?

I too have had this experience. Ended up on the roof while learning that 1974 Vega can't take corners like a Vette.

Even without being a “master mechanic”, who wouldn’t be concerned....hell even petrified, that their car just did this? Certainly doesn’t make sense, imho.

I have done vehicle inspections for many years, and have never seen a tie rod end snap from a defect. I see the customer complaints that their vehicle just veered to the right or left, could not steer, and the vehicle went off the road and struck something. The impact is what usually causes the tie rod end to break. I can also read the so called "black box" data and you will see the rest of the story. Just to clarify, an improperly installed tie rod end could fail, but it would be highly irregular.

One Post last week and he's gone! BS for sure.

BMR Sales: I agree with you that this was B.S. You live in Florida too and know that no one goes 30 mph on the country roads outside Ocala!! And then cannot control the car and goes off the road.

It would be a more interesting thread if we would all speculate what really happened and why.
It's clear already was going at least twice the "30mph" and lost control and went off the road. Why the post?
To show the thread to the parents how he wasn't driving recklessly cars do this all the time (as someone mentioned already I've see a few front drive cars with 300k miles? POS on the side of the road with a wheel pointing in a broken bone type direction). Has nothing to do with a 130k miles rwd car unless it went through half dozen 4"x4" fence posts and a ditch.

As I previously posted, the "black box" readout is a wonderful truth verification.

It was not the tie rod, it was lower control arm. Glad all you forum heroes here like to talk shit. Where I come from we help one another. Thank you to those who were positive. I posted trying to see if it was indeed common or not. I had never heard of it. It is 100% cast aluminum, and is the same cast aluminum found in ALL of these cars. It has already been processed by the MCSO, FHP and the insurance company. No fraud, no attention needed. I posted in duress and without having saw it for myself. The final report was that at 30 mph the driver front lower control arm failed following a hill and dip in the roadway. Impact was less than 20 mph. Edge of road to fence line is 12' in that section. There were 4 eye witnesses. It broke the wheel ejected out the driver side quarter panel , as in I was looking at the rim, the rack and pinion was destroyed. The damage caused by impact was all minimal and I thought I was going to get to put new skins on and go. Shock tower is twisted and it pulled the apron off the firewall,no airbag deployment. The fix is 299.00 for a set of thick wall, cold rolled steel. I have been test driving new cars, stuck between Gen5 1LE, and Gen6. I have over 50k posts from over the years, this is only the second time I felt attacked. The mistake was listening to all of the people handling it calling it a tie rod when it is an LCA. It was dark, near freezing when the tow truck got there. I am not trying to sue anyone. As you all know any mechanical part can, will, and is designed to fail. Maybe not like this,but how many of you really stretch the limits of your cars.....in corners.....had I been at this time I wouldn't be trying to make sense of it.I can tell you that I was PISSED to see a cast part. Take it how you will. I had no updates to post, and how many never come back after posting?I have NEVER saw a sponsor running their mouth at a member either.That's excellent advertising!

Car was a 2013 2SS RS 1LE fully optioned. It had 50,000 +/- I have had it since 23,000.Two days prior it snatched the wheel hard on me, and then again the night before. My wife cussed me out and I thought maybe I hit a hole I didn't see.I live in these horse farms, therefore I do not shit where I eat...that said most of these roads are terrible. I read one other story almost identical they figured it failed gradually instead of all at once.

Well, in fairness, pot calling the kettle black with your response. Also, you posted ten days ago posting a tie rod failure, and now post a lca failure. You did receive a number of direct replies. I believe the others found it incredulous the a tie rod snapped at 20mph. I do as well. Now we know it's not the tie rod.

I don't care for it either, but a little snarkiness seems to come with the territory (internet).

Snowflake meltdown.

Exactly!

As far as the OP calling me out - he has 3 Posts not 50,000+. All I said is that it was BS. I still think so. The OP going back to edit his FIRST Post (EVER) is evidence # 1. #2 is now he says that edge of the road to fence line was only 12 feet - "I went off the road, down an embankment, missed a concrete culvert, hit the fence 3/4 to parallel, went thru and then got it parallel to fence line." that sounds like a lot more than 12 feet. #3 Master Mechanic has an issue with his personal car, but doesn't look at until he crashes and then depends on a Tow Truck Drivers opinion that these break all the time!

The lower control arms on a Gen5 are STEEL, not aluminum....

keep trying still BS
 

Keep changing your story.


That silver circle thing is called a magnet, that thing it's stuck to is a STEEL lower control arm. They don't stick to cast aluminum.

:bs:



I'm like, I wouldn't be as harsh if you just ASKED what parts were what or what they were made of, but when you brag of being a master mechanic, far above us non-certified types, expect to be corrected for obvious errors in your unlikely story.
Edit: BTW the pic is upside down like often happens when posting here. That's the left front side.

All the control arms are steel on gen5’s including the ball joints etc. on the front assembly. The knuckles are aluminum that the control arms, calipers and hubs etc attach to. Chance of a control arm breaking or one would fail without some type of long term wear and tear and indication of an issue is slim to say the least. A driver would definitely be well aware of an issue by noise and crappy handling before any LCA would snap. A bent shock would occur most likely if hitting a monster pot hole typically and a bent LCA would be experienced.

The OP may have forgotten to mention to us the tow truck driver was his DD :smiling1:

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Why are you even here.. It's a ZL1 forum...

A heavy duty part like an LCA would have evidence of earlier damage/cracking.

An easy way to tell would be rust around the edges of the break and mostly clean metal in the middle.

OP would you post a pic of what broke? I for one would like to see that.

I'd like to see a pic too. The LCA is not the only thing holding the bottom of the knuckle. The tire sticking out like a broken bone does not make sense to me if the tierod and radius arm are still connected.

Pictures or it Never Happened!