3/18/14 9:23 PM

This has been a winter of potholes and now, frost heave. And the short day and long darkness doesn't help to spot them either...

So I heard this noise from the back and it got louder, something was loose. Brought the car to the garage and lo and behold, one of the rear shock was broken! I mean, broke free and detached from the mount and swinging about! Lucky it didn't take out anything else.

The repair wasn't too costly. Still, I'm a bit puzzled as to how it happened. I suppose shocks have a limit to their travel. Still, I thought even bottoming out, the shock shouldn't just break?

Sure, I hit a couple of pot holes recently. Going at 55mph down a county road, it's not always clear those dark spots are just melt water or missing top layer of the pavement! And even if it's the latter, sometimes, there's simply no room to avoid it.

And a week ago, I drove to a fairly remote mountain hut in southern NH, it was frost heave haven! Section of the road had so many of them I had to drive at half of stated speed limit. And that was AFTER I hit the first set of frost heave AT speed limit! :-(

Oh yeah, this happened on a cold day (single digit)

3/18/14 9:28 PM

I wonder if a suspension stop bushing is missing or deteriorated allowing a bit more travel than the shock was designed for or something...

3/18/14 11:19 PM

Did the shock break, or the mount just come loose? It's not common for breakage to occur, but on a very cold day the shocks are pretty stiff and take some time to warm up. Usually they don't actually break, but the mounts take a real beating, and if something starts working loose, it will keep loosening.

I don't think I've ever broken a shock, but driving in Vermont I've broken lots of springs. My wife's Volvo broke all four in one season. Stabilizer links have a hard life here too, as do shock bushings.

This is a bad year for frost heaves. Some combine with pavement cracks and culverts to provide an edge that can rattle your teeth and do real damage.

edit to add: On some cars, (old Mercedes a prime example) the limiter of suspension travel is built into the shock itself, so when you get launched it gets a lot of stress.

3/19/14 8:59 AM

And don't forget corrosion. It's been a very salty year for the roads here in the Northeast. I don't know how old your car is, April, but something rusting could have contributed to the break.

3/19/14 9:37 AM

That's shocking!!!!


(sorry I couldn't resist)

- JS

P.S. I have no idea what the problem is.

3/19/14 11:26 AM

We got rid of a minivan about four years ago after an inspection showed the front shock towers were about halfway eaten through by corrosion. This not long after my younger teenage son told us that our older teenage son had driven it down the hill on Route 15 near Amity at >100 MPH.

3/19/14 1:10 PM

A few years ago I had to get rid of my trusty old Mercedes with only 325 thousand miles on the clock, because when it came time to replace a piece of the rear suspension the bolt came off with a big hunk of subframe attached. Some time in the intervening thirty-two years it seems to have rusted!

Seriously, I am under the impression that April's car is not very old, so I'm voting for sheer stress over corrosion. If anything is going to break, this is the year it will break.

3/19/14 3:01 PM

Isn't it a BMW 3-series? Enough said...

Sandiway

3/19/14 3:06 PM

quote:

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driving in Vermont I've broken lots of springs. My wife's Volvo broke all four in one season. Stabilizer links have a hard life here too, as do shock bushings.

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quote:

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Did the shock break, or the mount just come loose?

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quote:

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This is a bad year for frost heaves. Some combine with pavement cracks and culverts to provide an edge that can rattle your teeth and do real damage.

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3/19/14 3:26 PM

If the frame part that the shock/strut mounts to had failed, the mechanic would have told you, as that is typically an in-repairable fix.

It sounds like the strut failed.

Which begs the question as the condition of the others.

3/19/14 4:19 PM

Is it in fact a shock or a strut??

3/19/14 4:44 PM

I must confess it never occurred to me to ask if insurance covered springs. I just bought new springs and put them in. In this case the shock portion of the front struts was OK, so I rebuilt the struts. It was the first job I took on after my neck brace came off after the bike accident, and I needed the challenge.

I think if the problem was an actual broken strut, the car would probably not have been driveable.

Anyway, looking forward to your looking at the dead part and reporting what it was.

3/19/14 4:58 PM

In my state people sue the Department of Highways. They get a court date, show pictures of the pothole, car damage,and receipts for repairs and usually get reimbursed. I'd rather not have an insurance claim if theres an option, as it may make it harder to shop insurance companies.

3/19/14 6:07 PM

You can get reimbursed or compensated in just about any state for pothole damage. The amount of evidence really varies between states. My problem is the last two times I suffered big damage was on interstates. The Federal government doesn't do anything.

3/19/14 7:30 PM

I didn't know you can sue the state. (amazing what one learns in a forum of knowledgeable folks!) I'll look up what New York state does for future reference. The broken shock incident happened in New Hampshire. I don't think I want to drive there to appear in court for $300 reimbursement

My insurance company (Geico) agent said pot hole demage are not considered an at fault demage. Not sure if it'll make any difference if I were to shop for another insurance company.

(I haven't change insurance company for many years. From talking to others on what they pay, it doesn't seem like mine is out of line)

3/20/14 12:48 AM

A bit over 40 years ago I was working for a large earthmoving company in North-Western Australia, and in those days, in that part of the country, the sealed roads were few and far between, and your standard unsealed road, particularly at the end of the wet season, was just a mass of corrugations and potholes, so the suspension on vehicles had a pretty hard life.

I can remember grabbing a company ute to drive from Karratha to Pannawonica, and it wasn't until I had been driving for an hour or so, and the road crossed over a large river on a new concrete bridge, that I realized that the shocks were completely shot. As the ute came off the unsealed corrugations onto the bridge, it continued to bounce up and down on the springs the entire way across the bridge. As soon as I was off the bridge back onto the corrugations, the ride went back to being so rough that I couldn't tell that the shocks weren't working.

3/20/14 7:06 AM

thread drift...

Many years ago my now ex wife and I took a long trip across the US and Canada in a VW camper. At one point what looked like a secondary road put us on a long unimproved logging road in British Columbia. At one point we stopped for some reason, and heard a funny gurgling hissing noise. It was the fluid in the shock absorbers boiling.

3/20/14 7:41 AM

My suspension story was back in the late 80’s I had bought an old used 70’s Plymouth Valiant from a neighbor (unfortunately NOT with the iconic slant six but with a V-8). What we call here a real New England “sled”

The Valiant ran okay (except in the rain when you were running the wipers, heater / defroster, radio etc when you stopped at a red light the engine would die, you had to keep it revved up a bit). This car had leaf springs in the rear. It had low mileage but rust was an issue (had been "stored" for a few years in a neighbor's back yard..... The leafs were pretty “stiff” for example I remember driving down in Danbury CT the expansion joints on the road would set you on a rhythmic ride you had to have seat belts….. I was driving the car on Mirona Road in Portsmouth NH which at the time was known for these “rollers” I went over one and heard a thud in the rear but nothing other so I kept driving. Subsequently when I would drive over a bump I would hear a sound like hee haaw hee haaw. After a few days I had to go into the trunk and found that one of the leaf springs had broken and had penetrated the floor of the trunk and the sound was the leaf spring scraping the floor metal of the trunk. I kept driving it for some weeks before I had the leaf spring replaced or had to junk the car can't remember…it only listed a bit to the right :)

3/20/14 11:39 AM

I went around a turn and hit a hard bump in a Fiat 850 I had when a teen. My Sis was sitting in the passenger side, then she was sitting on the pavement.
The floorpan let go and the metal slide track and entire seat dropped to the road. Her face was priceless, I imagine mine was about the same.

Growing up in NJ with some bad salty winters, most of my early cars where rust buckets...

3/20/14 12:33 PM

What is your car April, I think you had a Camry previous to this one. Just curious if we are talking broken shock or strut...

3/20/14 1:37 PM

Was that the 850 Spider, Sparky? (I think that was the only one sold in large numbers here). The classic "Fix It Again, Tony" model.

My first car was the much more substantial 124 (the coupe, not the Spider model with the very pretty Pininfarina bodywork). I kind of miss that car. It looked mild-mannered, but the DOHC 4 was surprisingly powerful, and it handled like a real sports car on twisty mountain roads. It also had a primitive (and dangerous) "cruise control" so I could rest my leg on the highway -- a hand throttle on the dash that you could set and leave; no interlocks, brake override, etc.

3/20/14 1:55 PM

"Was that the 850 Spider, Sparky?"

Yes, but I did not get to enjoy it long with the elements on it's heals. That, and an old beetle the
brake line rusted through, then another beetle I got for Elaine when we were dating that ate a valve. I gave up and started buying American cars again. ;O

3/20/14 4:17 PM

Off topic a bit here, but I can go Rick Hardy's Valiant one better. At one point in the 1960's I drove (work vehicle that had been donated to the organization) a 1960 Valiant that was missing a ball joint. The top of the knuckle simply stuck up through the hole in the upper A-arm where the ball joint had been. It was rather splay-footed, hard to drive straight, but it cornered well. It also had rusted door hinges, and a door and the tailgate both fell of at various times. We drilled the door hinges for bent nails. It caught fire once too. But unlike Rick's it had the slant 6 engine, so when it let itself out of gear one day and rolled into a tree and chopped a hole in the radiator, it made the 5 mile or so trip to the dump with no coolant and no complaint.

3/20/14 4:47 PM

>>it made he 5 mile or so trip to the dump with no coolant and no complaint<<

I don't recall any particular suspension incidents, but my first car was a '64 Peugeot 404 wagon I bought for $500. It drove great for a couple years, then on the way up to college for my senior year, the engine blew on the NY Thruway. The guy with the tow truck said "I won't give you anything for it, but I'll take it and won't charge you for the tow." Deal. Then my girlfriend picked me up in her Corvair.

3/20/14 5:55 PM

Fire, had one of those.

My Bro had a nice 67 Buick he left with his girlfriend when he went in the Air Force.

She would flood it, then put a stick in the butterfly to get it started. He never had any carb problems, I think she just got in and pumped the shit out of it as a habit from her previous junker.

So the air cleaner went in the trunk because it was too much trouble to take it on and off, and she flooded it and it somehow went on fire soon after...

She lived across the street from the FD, and they came over pretty quick and gave it a chemical bath with an extinguisher before too much damage occurred. All the wire harness on the engine, and 1/2 of it on the firewall got burnt, she was done.

I was 17 and said I would try to fix it. After giving under the hood a different bath to get all the chemical residue off, I went to work. It took me a few days tracing wire colors, bypassing, and soldering and heat shrink tubing all the wires back into a non crispy harness. Got a junk yard Quadra Jet and got it running. I got it right on the first try which still amazes me to this day. ;)

Unfortunately the smell was always present and got blown into the car when you used the A/C, Heat. Defrost etc.

I drove it until he came home on leave and he signed the title over to me...