I goes to beat the stale green light on a very long interval intersection of two small highways in NH... Swinging wide in a double turn lane to wrap the corner fast...
I don't even make it to the intersection in fact, where, you know, my Lower Control Arm explodes - as one does.
I instantly lost all control of car and screeched to a halt in the middle of the intersection halting traffic.
To note, this was also flat highway with great pavement and I did not strike anything or pothole and the driver side was unweighting approaching turn.
From my sleuthing - the loud Kaboom was the control arm breaking, which ripped apart the CV joint (see in pic), and the grinding was the wheel being forced into my fender in more or less a diagonal fashion.
- Boom goes the lower contral arm dynamiteIMG_4394-1.jpg (314.54 KiB) Viewed 706 times
At first I thought the axle broke. And the dark stuff was oil / transmission oil all puking out of the car. Then I could see it was the CV joint drawn and quartered in two. Then I noticed about the third look in the dark that the entire LCA was ripped apart in nasty looking rusty remains.
Car is 2005. kinda old yes. 140K miles. Body was beautiful, almost without flaw. Underside is not pretty - all rusty.
My knee jerk reaction - car is totaled in a practical sense. But looking it over now... thinking maybe I can get some Moog , SKF parts like new CV joint and LCA and replace them... and might not be too much money. The other side doesn't look too rusty and looks like I should be able to remove the required bolts but the drive side is hard to see clearly with all the damage. The passenger side LCA I struck to see if it felt sturdy - it did, but it rings as hollow which surprised me. My only up close and personal experience with a lower control arm was removing one from a junkyard that was aftermarket solid billet aluminum from a Honda that I then fabricated into a SteadiCam balance arm. So this cheesy hollow one was not what I was expecting to see.
Nor frankly did I know lower control arms could self grenade. Didn't know that was a thing, unless maybe you drive a car off a 8 foot cliff to flat or something like that (Bo Duke behavior type of stuff).
So... what say you folks? Fixable? Worth doing? Any other things I need to consider got damaged? Do I need to suspect the passenger side could also be frail as well?
Can I go with aftermarket CV joint and LCA? Does it have to be unicorn horn Pentosin brand for $3000 parts or normal folks Ford aftermarket stuff? I know my Honda Accord demands only a Honda axle or you'll be doing the job again with aftermarket junk for example.
