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Basil

Basil

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[FONT=Roboto, Arial, sans-serif]I just had a very scary experience with the front right lower control arm on my Santa Fe. The wife and I were driving into town to go to SafeLite glass to get a rock chip repaired. About 1/2 mile from the place we heard a loud bang and the car shuttered. At first I thought some one hit us, but looking around I didn't see anyone close. I exited the highway as soon as possible but when I put [/FONT]the brakes on we heard a horrible rubbing noise and the car pulled bad to open side! At this point (morning rush hour traffic) i just nursed it the two more blocks to the SafeLite place and pulled into the parking lot there. When I was finally able to get out and see what was going on I found that the tire on the passenger side was pushed back and rubbing against the rear of the wheel well. What happened: [FONT=Roboto, Arial, sans-serif]The bolt that holds the control arm front bushing onto the sub-frame fell out! This caused the control arm to work lose from [/FONT]the subframe - it was not pretty. [FONT=Roboto, Arial, sans-serif]The entire wheel on the passenger side, as I mentioned, moved abruptly back. I'm dumb founded that they designed the control arm so that the bolt goes in from the bottom so that if the nut on top vibrates lose, the bolt falls out! I've ordered a new Control Arm and when I reinstall it I'm putting lock-tite on that sucker!

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IMG_3565.jpg
 
Gads... I've not heard of such a catastrophic failure (on a modern car). Glad you could limp away.
 
Almost makes me wonder if some previous service saw it put back together wrong. I had a somewhat similar experience many years ago, apparently because some shop had substituted the wrong bolt in a critical location.
 
Glad you didn’t lose control of the car. Wonder if the install of the bolt is factory assembled or done by a previous mechanic?
No-one hurt and that’s a good thing.
 
TR3driver said:
Almost makes me wonder if some previous service saw it put back together wrong. I had a somewhat similar experience many years ago, apparently because some shop had substituted the wrong bolt in a critical location.
Click to expand...

I don't think so since I've owned the car since new. UPDATE - Actually now that I think about it, I did remove the lower control arms (both) several months ago to replace the ball joints. When I replaced them I installed the bolts as they were taken out, per this picture. I also torqued them to the proper specs. I have ordered a new control arm (in case this one got bent) and when I reinstall the new one I'm definitely putting locktite on the bolt/nut in addition to double checking the torque.

controlarm.jpg
 
Gliderman8 said:
Glad you didn’t lose control of the car. Wonder if the install of the bolt is factory assembled or done by a previous mechanic?
No-one hurt and that’s a good thing.
Click to expand...

I watched a video of installing a new control arm on that car and the bolt was removed from the bottom also and that's how it is on the other side on my car. In this video they replace the lower control arm on a Santa Fe. If you skip to about 1:45 you can see the bolt in question being removed from the bottom.

 
Wow. That must have been scary. Glad you’re okay.
 
Basil said:
I watched a video of installing a new control arm on that car and the bolt was removed from the bottom also and that's how it is on the other side on my car. In this video they replace the lower control arm on a Santa Fe. If you skip to about 1:45 you can see the bolt in question being removed from the bottom.
Click to expand...
Can you use a nyloc nut?
 
Jiminy Cricket, I'm happy no one got hurt.
 
Basil said:
I'm thinking about that. They should have designed it with a castle nut with a cotter pin to prevent the nut from coming loose.
Click to expand...
You are absolutely right about the castellated nut but at minimum you would think a nyloc nut should have been installed.
The nyloc is a cheap and easy fix to the problem.
 
Gliderman8 said:
You are absolutely right about the castellated nut but at minimum you would think a nyloc nut should have been installed.
The nyloc is a cheap and easy fix to the problem.
Click to expand...

I think I'm going to do that - plus LockTite just for good measure.
 
Had something very similar happen when I was driving the sprite 2 years ago. Upper control arm bolt sheared off. Was only going about 15 mph and thankfully was on base. Happened next to the firestation, just pulled in, had a buddy drive me home, grabbed a new bolt and back to the races. Could have been much much worse had I been at speed
 
Basil,

This should be reported to the Feds. If it happened to someone who was not used to having parts falling off their car (The Parts Falling Off This Car are of Highest British Engineering Standard) it could be catastrophic.

All the Best,

Joel
 
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