We’ve had steering issues for a few weeks, and this morning one of the front ball joints “popped off” and stopped the car. I’m trying to figure out whether this all means it’s time to find a new mechanic.
The car is a 2007 Jeep Patriot, manual transmission, with about 90,000 miles. 2 or 3 years ago we had to have both lower control arms on the front end replaced as the ball joints had worn badly and the front wheels were loose (the control arms include the ball joints). That mechanic (whom we haven’t used since) said ball joints were generally a problem for this model car, and he used Jeep parts. He said he wished there were aftermarket alternatives as the Jeep parts were the problem, but none were available. Cost was about $1500.
Then, a month ago, we had to replace the clutch slave cylinder, and also replaced the clutch itself. Doing this work they discovered the subframe that supports engine and transmission was very badly rusted, and replaced it. There was a lot of heavy rust elsewhere, too, which they showed us. The mechanic for this job was somebody we’ve been using for the last couple years, whom I tended to trust and like (noting how hard it is to really know without being an auto mechanic myself). Cost was $1900.
When we got the car back we noticed a weird, intermittent problem. While driving, without warning, the car would suddenly start veering to one side or the other. I wouldn’t feel the steering wheel pulling either way; it was more like some additional linkage in the steering was getting moved one way or the other, or like the back wheels were steering by themselves. When the car would do this, I’d have to turn the steering wheel about a tenth of a turn one way or the other to compensate, and hold it there (if the road were straight).
We took it back, told them about the ball joint replacement we’d had done, and said we didn’t know what was going wrong but wondered if the ball joints were failing again, or their front end frame work had changed something. Three different mechanics there said they definitely observed the same thing. They weren’t sure what was causing the problem. They put it up on a lift and inspected everything, and tried moving all the joints, and then used a crowbar to try to dislodge something, but they couldn’t make anything misbehave. They said it definitely wasn’t the ball joints, as they pushed hard on them and tried the crowbar on them and couldn’t detect any looseness. They wondered if it might actually be in the rear end, maybe rusted and weak parts. The three mechanics said, though, that the chief mechanic was out that day and they wanted him to see if he could figure it out tomorrow, and they kept the car.
Next day, the main mechanic looks and tries driving and says he can’t see or feel anything wrong. But he wondered if the alignment might be out, as the subframe replacement kind of disconnected and reconnected the front corners of the frame, so they realigned it and found the alignment had been very close to correct. Then I went with him for a test drive and I don’t feel it anymore either, and I took the vehicle back, and went on a long fast test drive with bumps and hard maneuvering, and can’t make anything go wrong.
A few days later Mrs. Napier says she thought she felt it again, so I took it out again and couldn’t make it malfunction, so we kept driving it without any problem for a couple weeks. Around this time, she also says at one point while starting through an intersection there was a huge clunking sound and the car jumped violently, but everything seemed normal after.
Yesterday on her way home, she said it started again, so I took it out last night and definitely easily felt the problem. I learned more, too – if I would accelerate hard, about a second after hitting the gas the car would veer leftward, and if I let the engine brake the car, about a second after coming off the gas the car would veer rightward. The time delay seemed a weird feature of this behavior. We decided to drive it to the mechanic first thing this morning.
So I’m following Mrs. Napier, who’s driving the Jeep (incredibly, she alleges that she can’t drive an automatic like my car, but that’s another story). Suddenly she’s stopped in the road, with about 50’ of skidmark behind her, and the right front wheel is at an impossible angle, nearly perpendicular to the rest of the car, as if to turn right. It has rubbed the wheel well hard, front and back. I actually have trouble orienting myself as to the hardware, and am not sure what changed, but apparently the ball joint has popped off. And I can’t drive the car more than an inch or so forward or backward, with the engine floored and the clutch (my poor new clutch) all the way out.
We get the car carried to the mechanic, and debated things a while. The mechanic is getting defensive, and says, well, what do you want me to do, replace the ball joint? Do you want me to replace the other side too? And I say my big concern is that a loose ball joint alone isn’t enough to explain how this very noticeable behavior starts and stops and starts again and stops again. The ball joint either stays loose, or pops off and stays off, I don’t think it should be able to improve for a week or two. Thus, I think there must also be something else wrong that everybody is missing. My other concern is that if the joint was loose enough to pop off today, they should have been able to detect that if they were taking a crowbar to it on their lift.
I think the car’s got something significant and possibly dangerous wrong with it that’s not getting addressed. However, I also want to be fair to the mechanic. I get the idea he’s writing me off as a troublesome customer (and I know he’s got other things to worry about such as some big new heart problem making him miss work). Some of the things I wish I knew are:
- Ball joints can’t get worse and better and worse and better before popping off, right?
- If a ball joint is worn enough to pop off this morning, a mechanic with a crowbar should have been able to feel looseness last month, right?
- What else could be causing the weird tracking issue and maybe the huge clunking noise with the jump?
- What can get damaged if the wheel flops way over to the side like that? I have to say, while the towing fellow was pulling it onto his truck, that front wheel was also moving forward and backward quite a few inches.
- Should I suspect the front end frame work is involved and there may be warranty issues with his last work? Or should I presume they’re unrelated and I’m looking at an entirely new repair bill (that might as well be with a new mechanic)?