My **** Day
04-28-09, 07:05 AM
#1
Driver School Candidate
Thread Starter
My **** Day
Today started with my figuring the 2 tests I had would be the worst part...
I was wrong...
My car had been making some really bad noises in the drivers side front wheel area. I had an appointment to have it looked at and suddenly the noise stopped so I figured I could chalk it up to a rock or something being wedged and then falling out.
Fast forward a week later to today, driving along and notice it's pulling kinda funky when I hit bumps...never done this before...
Keep driving, hit a "road closed" area I normally drive over with bad washboarding and whatnot...yada yada get to the end of that where the dirt turns into tar so I start speeding up and am going about 30-35 and hit the tar and hear a loud BAM followed by the sound of a squealing tire, ABS/VCS/TRACTION all lights up and the squealing is just unbelievable.
I get out to find this. Ok not exactly like this...I backed up just a bit to un-wedge the wheel from under the frame then took these pictures.
$170 later
Currently
What a crappy day. Mustang's coming out of storage tomorrow.
I was wrong...
My car had been making some really bad noises in the drivers side front wheel area. I had an appointment to have it looked at and suddenly the noise stopped so I figured I could chalk it up to a rock or something being wedged and then falling out.
Fast forward a week later to today, driving along and notice it's pulling kinda funky when I hit bumps...never done this before...
Keep driving, hit a "road closed" area I normally drive over with bad washboarding and whatnot...yada yada get to the end of that where the dirt turns into tar so I start speeding up and am going about 30-35 and hit the tar and hear a loud BAM followed by the sound of a squealing tire, ABS/VCS/TRACTION all lights up and the squealing is just unbelievable.
I get out to find this. Ok not exactly like this...I backed up just a bit to un-wedge the wheel from under the frame then took these pictures.
$170 later
Currently
What a crappy day. Mustang's coming out of storage tomorrow.
04-28-09, 07:10 AM
#2
Lexus Champion
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ball joint? was it making a wierd cracking sound? Cause ih ave a small popping sound when i put my car into R and back up, but only right when ishift, i hear that pop, and only front the front driver side wheel well area...
04-28-09, 07:11 AM
#3
Lexus Test Driver
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hmm there are never ending threads about the ball joints but still people get bitten by it before they get around to replacing. sorry to hear mate, hope you dont have other things to replace aside from the b/j's..
04-28-09, 07:12 AM
#4
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TomLee - depending how many kms your car has done id just replace em, cheap insurance :P i did mine and although mine werent making a single noise i still have firmer better steering since doing it and feel a lot better about driving my car !
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04-28-09, 08:00 AM
#11
It cannot be stressed enough. Change the balljoints regardless if you think the previous owner did it or not. Whenever you lower the car, you're adding more stress to the joints. As always, it's a good thing you weren't doing 70mph or so when this happened.
04-28-09, 10:17 AM
#14
Driver School Candidate
Thread Starter
Yeah I have never done any reading on the lexus like I did with the mustang so I wasn't aware that ball joints were a problem on these cars!
Guess I learned the hard way.
As for the noise...the best way to describe it would be a rusty hinge on a door any time you turned the wheel. Hindsight is 20/20 yes and I shouldn't have let the "fixing itself" allow me to let it go but being broke and having gotten under to check on things and not finding anything I figured it wasn't too big a deal.
I assumed wrong!
Guess I learned the hard way.
As for the noise...the best way to describe it would be a rusty hinge on a door any time you turned the wheel. Hindsight is 20/20 yes and I shouldn't have let the "fixing itself" allow me to let it go but being broke and having gotten under to check on things and not finding anything I figured it wasn't too big a deal.
I assumed wrong!
