joshyee

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So I'm driving on the highway. Loud pop on my passenger side. I'm thinking my tire popped, til I realize my brakes are out. As I pull over I see my wheel fly past me in front of me and turn to the left. ( thank God, I or my runaway wheel didn't hit anyone)
Anyways pull over, look at it at first glance thinking ball joint failed. CHP comes and looks at it. First thing he asked me was,
"How long has your car been lowered?"
"It's not."
"How long have you had the car?"
"Couple years."
"The guy before you must have had the car lowered. And when he took his coilovers off put stock stuff back on, he forgot to put a couple bolts on."

Then cop shows me the holes on the ball joints where the two bolts would go, then showed me on the wheel hub, two holes where bolts were supposed to connect. He showed me the inside of the holes on the hub were rusted, meaninf there wasn't any bolts on there for a while.

So my guess is after 30k of my own driving since buying. The final bump knocked the wheel hub out of alignment with the lower ball joint, caused the upper control arms ball joint to snap of the wheel hub.

Oh and also after I bought the car, first thing I did was order some moog ball joints. But when I removed the wheel to do it, I saw there was already moogs on there so i left it be. I didnt really fully check if anything was missing though. Im not super knowledgeable about cars, but I can follow instructions and can do some basic crap.


Question to CL.
What's best for replacing what I need to replace. Should I just get all lexus parts?. I'm of course changing both sides. I already have moog ball joints and tie rods. I believe I need a new LCA, UCA, hub, and I gotta do something with the brake line since it snapped. But suspension wise, what's the best out there?

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FrankT

So glad you are physically OK and no one got hurt, It has to take a mental toll to go through that.

Good luck bro, your new suspension will depend on what you want out of your car...

Mcon

iTrader: (1)

joshyee,

First, I need to say what FrankT saidto you; So glad you are physically OK and no one got hurt.

Second, You also need the ABS sensor and after you installing everything back. Reset your check engine light. Just because the wire on your ABS Sensor is it broke.

Third, you are in CA. Call this TLS. This guys have a lot of OEM parts with one year warranty. (877) 247-1717

Good Luck with you repair.

kowala

iTrader: (2)

Glad you're okay too! What Mcon said, they'll have everything you need for sure!

firelizard

iTrader: (1)

Uhh... there's no way your car went 30,000 miles with the lower ball joint not bolted in.

newgsman

iTrader: (4)

I suspect the ball joint bolts were probably not torqued properly. I once had to move a car I was fixing up just a couple of hundred yards. I put the ball joint in and didn't really button it up, the car barely got 100 feet before the ball joint popped out.

In your case the bolts properly worked themselves out over the several thousand miles. I have had similar experience with brake caliper bolts loosening up over time. You are definitely very lucky there were no injuries resulting from this.

offbad

iTrader: (5)

surprised insurance didn't total it out

good luck

joshyee

Thanks for all the replies. Upon further investigating I saw on the hub that there was just 1 bolt in, it was stripped on the inside.but the other pretty rusted. So I was riding on one I'm guessing til i finally gave. Yes, very thankful I'm not hurt or didn't hit anyone else. I didn't bother with insurance because I figured it won't be so bad to fix. My neighbor is a lexus mechanic, just gotta buy the parts and he'll help me install. But thanks, thinking of just going to those salvage yards and taking the parts I need off those GSs. Looking on getting a 3GS as a better family car and just have this to play with. Thanks everyone