Really scary Impreza suspension failure

[Julian Thompson]

One of my best friends was on his way to work two days ago when all of a sudden something broke on the front of his Impreza at 60mph.

He said it felt like driving on ice - he was over the wrong side of the road, narrowly missed oncoming traffic and somehow avoided the hedge.

It turns out the wishbone snapped clean in half.

This is on a car that recently had an engine rebuild, replacement calipers, struts, ball joints and is serviced religiously every year. The MOT was March this year.





From now on he’s agreed to bring the car to my house once every six months and we will have a beer and very carefully check it on my ramps because like I’ve told him before - you just can’t trust anyone nowadays.

I’m really upset that the spanner men he has been using didn’t spot this - I know March is a while ago but seriously there must have been some signs by that point. The ball joints were done a few weeks ago!

I keep replaying it in my mind and realise just how serious this could have been. Horrible.

[road_rager]

There was a recall for this on foresters

[s m]

There was a similar thing happened to Cavaliers when they were jacked up on the front arms
Made ‘Watchdog’

Edited by s m on Tuesday 10th December 22:37

[Krikkit]

Are those arms the originals that have failed or cheap replacements?

[rallycross]

Rust, old age and a big pot hole?

[anonymous-user]

s m said:

There was a similar thing happened to Cavaliers when they were hacked up on the front arms
Made ‘Watchdog’

I remember that - it was tracked to counterfeit or dodgy parts IIRC?

[alexmonkey]

s m said:

There was a similar thing happened to Cavaliers when they were jacked up on the front arms
Made ‘Watchdog’

Edited by s m on Tuesday 10th December 22:37

Why on earth would you jack a car up on the lower arms? Many models have cast arms - my Shed included - and I would never dream of doing that...?

:-/

[mattyprice4004]

Same happened on the Africa Top Gear Special to Hammond’s car I believe

[untakenname]

I'm pretty sure the arms on my Newage are made out of solid alloy, perhaps these ones were knockoffs?

[diddles]

road_rager said:

There was a recall for this on foresters

That recall included the impreza as well.

Recall notice as below:



Recall Notice 1 - LOWER CONTROL ARMS MAY FAIL
Launch Date 15/01/2012
Recalls No. R/2011/146
Models Forester and Impreza
VIN Range -
Build Dates 01/01/2002 - 31/12/2007
Concern
LOWER CONTROL ARMS MAY FAIL
Defect
The front Transverse links (lower Control Arms) may corrode leading to possible breakage if left without treatment.
Remedy
Either additional rust proofing or replacement of the Transverse links will be performed according to the degree of corrosion.

[diddles]

When was the last time that car got serviced via a Subaru main dealer?

[gazza285]

alexmonkey said:

s m said:

There was a similar thing happened to Cavaliers when they were jacked up on the front arms
Made ‘Watchdog’

Edited by s m on Tuesday 10th December 22:37

Why on earth would you jack a car up on the lower arms? Many models have cast arms - my Shed included - and I would never dream of doing that...?

:-/

So you don't have to uncompress the suspension. My trolly jack cup used to fit nicely under the anti roll bar bush on many a Ford of yesteryear.

[GOATever]

It wouldn’t take as much as you might think to break one like that. A reasonable whack on a kerb, or a big enough pot hole may be enough to do that to a perfectly healthy control arm. The control arms were / are actually ridiculously fragile, on these cars, considering what most folk assume the sorts of conditions / driving cars can take.

[enginebuilder]

Its a well documented failure on WRX steel lower arms, STI's have alloy arms & don't suffer this problem, it goes back to the earlier Blobeye WRX's of the 03 to 05 models also, the excessive corrosion should be easily spotted where ever its been serviced or MOT'ed.

[pjfry]

untakenname said:

I'm pretty sure the arms on my Newage are made out of solid alloy, perhaps these ones were knockoffs?

Only STI models have the alloy control arms. WRX have steel control arms that can rust and fail like this.

[aka_kerrly]

[quote=Julian Thompson
From now on he’s agreed to bring the car to my house once every six months and we will have a beer and very carefully check it on my ramps because like I’ve told him before - you just can’t trust anyone nowadays.

I’m really upset that the spanner men he has been using didn’t spot this - I know March is a while ago but seriously there must have been some signs by that point. The ball joints were done a few weeks ago!

I keep replaying it in my mind and realise just how serious this could have been. Horrible.
[/quote]


Firstly I agree it must have been quite a shock for your mate to find himself in that situation and it's dam lucky he wasn't travelling faster.

However, I think you maybe being a little hard on the mechanics that have worked on the car. Do you have equipment to test the structural integrity of metal?

You have to accept that the surface metal is likely to have appeared lightly rusted (potentially for few years) & it would be difficult during an MOT/service to assess how deep the rust went or if it has indeed it had penetrated sufficiently to weaken the arm. The likelihood is there has been water ingress causing the arm to rot from the inside out.

It would be useful to know if the part was a genuine Subaru or an aftermarket replacement.

[Jimmy Recard]

aka_kerrly said:

Firstly I agree it must have been quite a shock for your mate to find himself in that situation and it's dam lucky he wasn't travelling faster.

However, I think you maybe being a little hard on the mechanics that have worked on the car. Do you have equipment to test the structural integrity of metal?

You have to accept that the surface metal is likely to have appeared lightly rusted (potentially for few years) & it would be difficult during an MOT/service to assess how deep the rust went or if it has indeed it had penetrated sufficiently to weaken the arm. The likelihood is there has been water ingress causing the arm to rot from the inside out.

It would be useful to know if the part was a genuine Subaru or an aftermarket replacement.

Since the Subaru ones are known to fail commonly, I’m not sure you’d learn that much

[Pothole]

Julian Thompson said:

like I’ve told him before - you just can’t trust anyone nowadays.

How do we know he can trust you?

[snotrag]

Very unfair to try and 'pin' this on mechanics who have worked on the car, not like they looked at it yesterday,

[SuperPav]

I've had a suspension link snap whilst driving (thankfully only at 30mph in London) on my Passat. This was on a straight bit of road, no bumps/pot holes, just all of a sudden gave way, total loss of control as car skidded to a halt. Could've happened 10 minutes prior to that at more than double the speed...

It was on 240k miles, and it was the original VW link, but there wasn't any indication of "impending doom" on it or the other arm, so I think it's a bit unfair to blame a garage for not spotting it. Similar to coil springs snapping, sometimes it happens, with potentially terrible consequences, but thankfully its incredibly rare as these parts are generally significantly over-specced.

It appears Subaru arms are known to fail, in which case replacing every 5-8 years (or whatever) may not be a bad idea, assuming of course the replacements aren't even weaker!