Is this a broken axle? I need help, what happened to my left front wheel?

Please help if you can. I was backing out of my parking space at midnight at work, when the car went "crunch" and stopped. I thought I had a flat tire, I get out and my entire wheel had folded over. Is this most likely a broken lower ball joint?

Some background: It's a rear wheel drive 1996 with the 2.4. There is zero rust on the frame or anywhere else. I baby this car and never off road or treat it rough, and I have not hit anything.

For the past two weeks turning the steering wheel was stiff, so I thought the power steering pump was going out. I was driving 65 MPH to and from work all week long for my 150 mile a week commute with absolutely no shaking or pulling to the side of the road - like I said, the steering wheel was getting harder to turn, that's all.

Will a mechanic shop touch this, or is this a job for a serious auto body collision shop?

If it is just a broken ball joint, does Toyota even make these parts any more?

Is this a common thing on 1st Gen Tacomas?

How many thousands can this cost to fix?

Les Scwab rebuilt the brakes with new rotors about 2 years ago, could they have messed something up?

 

If you can, get a picture from the under side to see whats up. More than likely though, a ball joint left the chat. You can tow it to a mechanic shop and they can sort you out. However call them in advance and arrange with them when to bring it in so they can get it towed straight into the bay vs. A guy having to go do the repair outside in the parking lot because the vehicle isn't movable.

I doubt you need a body shop.

If toyota doesn't sell the ball joints still then more than likely any part store will. Expect another one to be close to coming apart too and get a quote to replace multiple ball joints

 

Hey thanks a bunch. In your opinion will I need upper and lower control arms, tie rods, upper ball joints, too? In other words, due to liability reasons, will mechanics refuse to fix just one ball joint? You know, they'll insist on completely rebuilding all steering components?

Also, my 1996 has 220,000 miles on it. Is this common, or super rare on Tacomas to break ball joints? So weird that it did not shake or make any noise at all.

 

1st gens are known for having lower ball joints fail, I bought some new OEM ones from McGeorge Toyota, I think they were around 300$ for both. Job is super easy to do yourself if you have the tools, I would recommend using brand new bolts along with new lower ball joints. The issue is somewhat common, just be glad it didn't happen when you were doing 65 MPH when it failed.

Have the shop inspect your outer tie rod, and the sway bar, its possible it could have ripped the boots on your CV axle. Other than that you should be fine.

 

OP has a 5 lug, so no CV axles involved. @1996_2.4 - if you do any searching at all, you'll find 1st gen ball joint failures are more common than one would think. If yours was original with 220k on it, it was a ticking time bomb waiting to fail. Consider yourself extremely lucky it didn't fail on one of your recent 65 mph commutes.

The LBJ should be readily available from Toyota (don't use aftermarket LBJs), but some other components might (likely) have been damaged due to the wheel coming off and will have to be evaluated by a shop. Unless you feel up to checking it out yourself...

Also, replace the passenger side LBJ at the same time.

 

You don't necessarily need a whole new front end, just the one failed component can be replaced. If that's the only thing that went wrong

I would still check over the whole front end for anything else loose or otherwise damaged from this incident such as a brake hose being compromised or (if you had 4WD) a cv axle being damaged and I would expect the shop you go to to do the same. Especially with your truck being older.

If anything else is loose/compromised it's not compulsory that it get repaired immediately but depending how bad and what else it is they may make you sign a waiver saying you understand not getting other items repaired is a safety hazard that you have been told about. Obviously something like your brake hose being torn is something that will also have to be repaired too for your vehicle to be drivable but an outer tie rod end with 0.01" of play can wait.

I don't know if this is a common failure but others above say it is. I've only ever worked as a Chev dealer mechanic and at a custom shop so idk much about these trucks.

I've seen trucks blow ball joints at 20'000kms and others over 300K with factory ball joints. Depends on alot of factors but primarily how rough of roads you travel on.

I had to replace both my factory lower ball joints around 160'000kms because they were loose but I tend to work my truck with towing it's own weight and hauling commonly along with traveling on alot of beaten roads, which includes Saskatchewan.

Typically a loose ball joint will cause issues like abnormal tire wear and poor vehicle handling more so than a noise or shake. Honestly sometimes it's hard to even "feel" when something is off with the suspension. I usually check my front end when I do tire rotations

 

Not rare at all. As a matter of fact a couple months ago while sitting at a stop light, my son had a early Toyota pickup lose one and T-bone his Scion xb.

Glad that it held on the freeway. As much of a $ hardship doing a few more components may be, its worth your saftey. Be careful of Midas and generic quicky frontend shops, they tend to try to oversell.

 

Thanks to everybody. I'm getting it together getting ready to call shops right now (you'd be surprised how many shops say "Stop right there" when you tell them your car is over 25 years old, they refuse to work on anything older due to bolts and plastic parts cracking).

 

Boy you are one lucky man! The only way you could have done better was to have the ball joint break in front of the repair shop of a decent mechanic!

 

Thanks. I turn right onto the highway after I get out of work and go 65 MPH for 10 miles, I guess I was 5 minutes away from a crash...still, I can't afford gas in my car right now let alone this damn repair bill. I'll post a follow up as to what this was (lower ball joint they tell me) and what the cost was for future readers if this happens to them

 

FIFY

 

Hey it looks just like a broken ball joint

 

I hope your outer tie rod is ok...it's at a pretty severe angle after that wheel came off...

 

I'm screwed. I can barely change spark plugs. No way could I attempt to fix this at AutoZone myself. I just pray it being under $2,000 cos the other side at least needs new ball joints, too.

 

If you can do spark plugs, you can do the joints.
I used to work for AutoZone. They are a cool company.
We had people do brake in the parking lot all the time. No one cared.

Hit up YouTube, it isn’t a hard job.
I can offer torque specs and and some data from a repair manual if needed.

 

Where are you located? Maybe a friendly member nearby can give you a hand and show you the ropes

 

I personally have seen 5 Tacomas with ball joint failures since Thanksgiving.

I do drive a lot though.

I think this is becoming a very popular trend as most Tacoma owners don’t maintain their trucks at all, and the last first gen was built 20 years ago lol.

 

Do not use aftermarket LBJ's, OEM only, you won't find them at Autozone and make sure you specify this if you have the work done.

Before doing my front suspension work, I knew next to nothing about Taco suspensions. The quotes on just about anything were expensive enough to motivate me to learn, I still know very little but I do know I saved around 5 grand. It might be time to dig in and learn.

If your ball joints are gone it's more than likely you'll need to get into other stuff too. Front bushings upper and lower, tie rod ends, steering rack bushings, shock bushings, all these are made of rubber and after 20 years will need attention.My truck literally wouldn't align until I refreshed the whole front end.

The worst part for me was getting things apart, a ball joint or tie rod end that's been in place for 20+ years doesn't come out easily and I broke several tools trying. They require special pullers (which you can rent, or borrow from A.Z. or O'Reilley's) and a BAH to get them loose.

A lot of people aren't down for the kind of effort required, so you might consider selling "as is" to cut your losses. You'd be surprised at how much you could get for it right now.

 

It's in the shop right now. I'll post what's up for future readers in case they run into the same thing so they know what to expect. At 61 years old with arthritis and a fused spine I don't reef on suspensions anymore lol

 

The only silver lining to these common ball joint failures on these trucks, is that it usually happens at slow turning speeds when there's more weight/force pulling at the joint. See them mostly happen in parking lots or neighborhoods. Not nearly as common to have the failure happen at highway speed unless it's the bolts that give out or you hit a gnarly pothole