Wishbone failure causes bad steering

[taylormj4]

Hi all,
Was home from work and found I needed to steer right to keep her in a straight line. Got home and looked at the front tyres and can see that they are visibly toeing out...quite a bit. Took it to my local tyre place next day accompanied by worrying creaking noises. The tracking was found to be "off the scale". Jacked her up and the N/S front lower wishbone has rusted along one of the folds in the metal and had parted leaving a gapping hole!

Had to get her flatbedded to the garage for fear that the suspension was about to collapse.

The paint flaked off these a few years back and I didn't bother painting them as they looked beyond recovery , but every service and MOT they guys hammer heck out of them and find them to be solid . Alarming how fast these can go downhill, even after a dryish Winter with little road salt being used etc. (she's a daily driver).

Learning point: Keep an eye on your wishbones....regularly! I hate to think what could have happened if the steering hadn't given me a warning.

Matt

[GreenV8S]

taylormj4 said:

The paint flaked off these a few years back and I didn't bother painting them as they looked beyond recovery

Beyond recovery but you didn't replace them? I don't understand the logic there. Obviously they are going to fail at some point, and sooner rather than later if they're unprotected and used through the winter.

[taylormj4]

What I mean is that, they had pitted rust, so I thought that the rust would just come straight back through, if I painted them. However, they looked strong enough to wait until next service for replacement. But when I asked for them to be replace at service, I was told that they were Ok and didn't need replacing until next time (I've obviously got a good garage fella who doesn't replace things just to make money).

[pupp]

taylormj4 said:

(I've obviously got a good garage fella who doesn't replace things just to make money).

Or who just didn't fancy what can be a cr@p job?