String of bad luck

Some of you may remember my recent suspension related thread from last week. Well, this past Wednesday I brought my truck to the shop for a front end alignment after installing the wheelers off-road full suspension package. At the same time I had replaced all tie rods, steering rack bushings, all ball joints, sway bar end links, and all control arm bushings. Including some other various parts and small amount of labor I spent about $2000 on all of this. I haven’t really driven the truck at all since the alignment.

Yesterday while running about 17-20 mph I entered a downhill curve in the road while it was slightly raining and my trucks steering did not respond to the steering wheel. The truck continued in a straight path until the bank that I ran into brought us to a stop. Brakes locked out and everything. I’ve attached a few pictures of the accident. I’m super fortunate that the truck wasn’t really damaged and we are unharmed. It did rip both blinkers out of the bumper. 10ft in front of where the truck stopped is a very washed out creek(7-8ft down).

The cause of this accident—the alignment tech didn’t properly torque the castle nut and used an undersized cotter pin on my passengers side outer tie rod. The castle nut never walked completely off of the tie rod end. At the time of the accident the only thing still holding the tie rod to the steering knuckle was a couple threads. As you can imagine this created a lot of slack in my steering almost imediately. I had my 14 year old brother in the truck with me at the time... his birthday is today and could’ve easily been missed as a result of someone’s negligence.

I guess my purpose of writing this post is mostly for sharing a story and for mild venting purposes. This was a well respected shop in my area that trusted a young and inexperienced mechanic with my life. I believe this incident has closed the door to me ever trusting any shop with anything on any of my vehicles ever again. I will THOROUGHLY inspect every nut, bolt, or piece of tape not applied by me.

 

I’d be suing someone!!

 

I had the same thing happen a few years ago with my mustang. I lost 1 side but got it to the side of the road before I lost the 2nd. Passenger side nut was on by maybe 2 threads. I was lucky, I usually took the interstate and that day chose the surface streets. Somi was doing 40 instead of 80. The ball joints let loose less than a quarter mile from the onramp.

 

So the alignment shop installed the outer tie rod ends?

You didn't make it clear which parts you installed yourself and which parts the alignment shop installed.

 

I had Goodyear forget to torque my wheel lugs after a rotate and balance.

 

glad no one was injured...

When I worked a high end dealership one tech forgot to torque Range Rovers wheels on a semi regular basis. He was always worried about the next job. The problem as I saw it was that managment routinly overlooked this because he made so much money for the shop that this was "acceptable".

 

judging by his initial statement I assumed he did all the installs and then just took it for the alignment.

 

So wait, you posted this yesterday (the 20th) which is a wednesday, then you say that "yesterday" you took the shop for an alignment (which would be tuesday).

Just trying to get a more clear picture of the time line.

Also, which parts did YOU install, and which did the shop do?

 

Yup, I took mine in a few weeks back for a balance/alignment at the Toyota dealer, came home and found two of the front left lug nuts had been cross-threaded and one was sheared off. Assume nothing, check everything. They seemed genuinely embarrassed when I pointed it out to them. People make mistakes, but if I get the vibe that inexperienced people are being pressured to cut corners and then thrown under the bus when shit goes wrong, that's a red flag for sure. Glad everyone's ok and your truck is intact.

 

From his post it sounds like due to the lift and new parts the tie rods had to be undone and adjusted because there was not enough adjustment in the alignment bolts. After which, during re-installation, the tech didn't torque back the castle nut or use a proper cotter pin. Just what I get from reading.

 

definitely figure out what recourse you have - get legal advice for this regardless if you choose to take action or not.

glad you all walked away... craziness.

 

Nailed it. I installed everything myself super carefully. Torqued everything like 3 times and then drove it to the alignment shop.

To clarify the timeline:

Last Wednesday the truck went in for the alignment after sitting several days since the new parts were installed. When the appointment was made it stressed 3 times(I personally know these people) that I did the work and that I was thorough in my job but I wanted everything inspected from front end to suspension and brakes. Kind of like a thorough pre purchase inspection. Accident occurred Tuesday. I hadn’t driven the truck more than maybe 5-6 low speed miles since the alignment the previous Wednesday. I brought the truck back to their shop yesterday to have them look at what happened.

 

Glad you're alive and well, Brett. The thing that did it for me (made me realize I can't trust anyone with my truck) was a little thing, not serious, but enough to piss me off. I had a shop install a new clutch pedal assembly after mine wore out. I went to pick it up from the shop and the dreaded clutch bushing squeak caused me to mention to the noise to the owner. They took the truck back and greased the bushing and all was well. When I got home I took a look at the new pedal assembly and the entire area was absolutely covered in liquid wrench white lithium grease. Every component under the dash was drenched in sticky white mess. I'm just done, no one cares, and even if you find a good shop they'll give an easy job to a Jr. Tech in high school and ruin your day.

 

I really believe that the extra ground clearance from the lift may have prevented the truck from high centering and rolling over. This was a shitty bad situation that I came out of pretty clean. The biggest complication to this incident is that my other brother is dating one of the owners of the company that runs this shop. I’m pretty close with their family by association. I decided not to file a police report on the accident. The shop put their best mechanic and the shop manager on my truck yesterday and realigned everything. I only asked them for reimbursement for the winch out fee I paid the tow truck and money to replace my blinkers. It amounted to $100. I’m a Mason and the tow truck driver happened to be a Mason too. He hooked a brother up. I missed a whole day of work over this and probably had a very solid legal case, but decided to smooth everything over. I just felt too fortunate that I came out of it unharmed and my truck wasn’t totaled. I feel better knowing that I don’t have to fuck with them anymore.

 

I don’t blame you either, man. You know it may be that our trucks look like old ass beaters in their eyes when compared to a lot of these new $60,000 trucks other people are bringing in. We get treated like the fat chick with braces at the bar while some dudes stupid ass Chevy gets treated like a drunken blonde undergrad ready to mingle. Other people just don’t care about my stuff as much as I do... pretty cut and dry. It’s a sad thing to have to come to terms with because my time spent as a carpenter/cabinet builder I make every effort to provide perfection to my customers.

 

The Goodyear tech should be piss tested.

 

Why did the alignment shop need to loosen the castle nut to adjust the alignment?

 

Most likely to adjust toe.