So I had an eventful bank holiday... almost crashed the car!
Driving at 30mph (luckily) and the rear left suspension collapsed. The track arm had sheered its bolt that goes into the hub, allowing the arm to break free completely, resulting in my back wheel turning in completely and kicking the back end of the car out. Was absolutely fine, I didn't hit anything and pulled over safely and inspected the damage.
Luckily it was just the arm that had been damaged and no other parts, but thankfully I was only doing 30mph. If I had been doing 70mph+ (like I had been moments earlier), it would have been a different story. But no biggie, could be worse! I intended to replace the arm and get an alignment done, and have it back on the road.
Called for the recovery, and in all fairness they were exceptional and took good care.
The next morning, I took the damaged part off. Now there should be a bolt on the end of this where the nut screws onto, but that's broken off. What's more worrying is that there's only clean metal through a small part in the centre.
Was this all that was holding it on? Perhaps a design flaw from the factory, or maybe it had been cracked a while ago? Either way, it was only a matter of time before this failed.
Anyway.****I popped over to EuroCarParts and picked up a new arm for £60 (bit of a deal made). Went back and fitted the arm, all was well.
Took it for a quick test drive and the car was handling horrendously, with the back end twitching over every bump. Completely expected this as the eccentric bolt that I took off to get the arm off completely controls the toe and can alter the camber of the wheel, so the wheel was miles out.
Took it straight to a very reputable garage to have it put on a Hunter system to get all four wheels aligned back to factory spec after the accident.
Incredible bit of kit, using lasers and pattern boards to identify the wheels caster, camber and toe.
No bolts were seized, the whole process was a doddle.
This was the alignment before (expected to be horrendous due to the new arm fitted)
This was after:
Now the reason why the rear left camber is slightly out is because of my own wrong doing. When I changed the part, I had to take off the eccentric bolt and put it back - the bolt with the egg-shaped washer that, when turned, pushes and pulls the arm to adjust the toe. Well this has two washers, and I think I've put them on so they don't match with each other, which isn't a problem, but****results in the bolt being completely useless to adjust the toe properly unless I take it all off and re-fitted it correctly. The guy managed to get it as close as possible and adjusted the camber so that the toe was in but camber slightly off, as it's a lot better to have the camber off than the toe off.****
Even so, he assured me that the amount that it's out will make absolutely no real world difference as it's only 0.07 degrees out of the limit. I'll probably re-fit that bolt in the future but it'll just be for the sake of it as it wouldn't really make any difference.
Car was finished! £60 for the part that I fixed myself, and £60 for all of the alignment. Car was back on the road the day after the accident. Cheap and cheerful!
Took it for a drive. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! The alignment must have been out previously, as I'm blown away by how confident the car feels in turns, and how it feels like it's on rails in a straight line. Nothing upsets the steering, it doesn't budge going over any bumps in the road. Just feels like a new car. Any car I buy in the future, I'll be taking it there to get a full alignment done. I wish I did this before.
Also, on my drive, this happened!
100,000 miles!
Very pleased with the car at 100,000 miles. Aiming for the next 100,000 now!
I've got two torque wrenches that I use when working on the car.
Ocean blue
Hybrid Mode
