This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
While my wife was driving the car with our child at around 25 mph, there was a catastrophic failure, the car slowed down and started shaking along with loss of steering control and power into the wheels. She managed to steer the car to the side of the road to a stop and upon visual inspection the right front wheel was tipped and looked as if it had decoupled from the axle, and the front suspension had dropped on the right side. The car had to be towed to the dealer and while the car was being lifted on the tow truck I noticed metallic shavings that looked like wear debris coming out of the vicinity of the front right wheel. The dealer has informed me that the lower ball joint was destroyed, and the ball joint, the front axle and the control arm need to be changed. I asked the dealer if there had been any signs of corrosion and they said no. The car had also undergone a major servicing about 2 months back at the same dealership and nothing was noticed at that time. The failure appears highly unusual since this is a 7 year old car that has been dealer-serviced regularly and there were no prior signs of an impending, sudden failure. If the car had been going at a higher speed the consequences could have been dangerous due to the loss of steering control experienced.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Chappaqua, NY, USA