I am new to this site just about a week ago and my 1997 Blazer suspension has failed today. My wife after work today was backing out of a parking spot and the right front wheel came off and the front end dropped to the ground. The lower “A” arm broke off at the lower ball joint. It appears to be three layers of sheet metal tore in half. This is a 4x4 but never has been off road or wrecked and very well maintained I plan to make a trip to my local Chevy dealer tomorrow and see if there is any bulletins or recalls. I am going to report this to the NHTSA and send them pics. I am lucky my wife wasn’t on the interstate at 65 MPH. Just thought I would pass this on to you guys so you check yours for cracks.

 

Have at it boss, I can tell you that you probably won't get any compensation. The problem was mostlikely a failed balljoint that led to a broken control arm. Because it is stamped steel has nothing to do with the fact that it broke. Parts break and no amount of engineering or over-engineering can change that fact. Just look at the airline industry.

How many miles are on this '97? I've had to replace all 4 balljoints on my 2k Bravada and I've only got 73k miles on it. Not being offroaded or wrecked has nothing do with it nor does being well maintained (unless that maintenance included a monthly greasing of all 4 balljoints which may necessitate removal of the front wheels). I actually think that 2 of the ball joints that I installed in my Bravada were defective. I don't drive it much right now and am planning on replaceing them again (lifetime warranty on parts) when I get some time.

It seems like an unfortunate event that you should be thanking someone that it happened in a parking lot and not on the highway. Please take pictures of the damage and post them here. I'll be able to tell you if this is worthy of any action on your part. I highly doubt that it would go anywhere though even if you were to push it to the extremes.

 

No the ball joint didn't fail, it was the lower "A" arm snapped just inside the ball joint.


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That's some crazy sh*t!

I'm definitely gonna strengthen the A arms on the Blazer before I 'bag it!

 

Well, even if the ball joint did not fail, I can see one thing that doesn't look right... It looks like one of the bolts that holds the balljoint on is loose. Now that could be because it stretched from the a-arm breaking...

One thing is for sure, anything can happen when you are dealing with an 8 year old vehicle. I have seen some Ford F-150's (early to mid '90s) with rotted through frame rails right behind the front axles. Now you can't tell me that that was safe by any stretch of the imagination. It wasn't due to lack of maintenance or the owners beating on them.

All that something like that takes is a hit to a curb while parking sometime in its life that stressed the a-arm (a curb hit while sliding around in winter weather would really stress it...). Unless you have owned the vehicle since new, then you don't truely know the entire history of it and whether it was as well taken care of as you have done since purchasing it. And the funny thing about stressed parts is, there really is no way of predicting, with any certainty, when they are going to fail.

 

The bolts that are loose are due to the failure. There are three layers of material and some of it has been pulled out from under the bolts. And as for it being an 8 year old car if you accept these types of failure as due to age this is not acceptable to me. This car has never been off road and only driven by wife 95% of the time. Only in 4x4 maybe three to six times a winter when the roads are covered. I expect a higher lever of reliability than this for a critical suspension part that could have resulted in loss of life if she went straight home from work on the interstate. Lucky for her she stopped at the optometrist to get her glasses fixed and it broke backing out of a parking spot.





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Ok, going along with what was in the picture taken there, when did you have the ball joints replaced? Factory ball joints are riveted in. Dealer and aftermarket replacements alike are bolted in. It is quite possible that when ever the ball joints were replaced, that whoever did the replacement severely nicked the a-arm. It is quite possible in your case that someone screwed something up (without even noticing) during the ball joint replacement. Getting alittle to steep of an angle with an air chisel could really mess up the lower control arm.

Oh and to put this in perspective. I have only ever heard of maybe 4 lower control arms breaking on s10 based vehicles. One of them is you and the other 3 were on trucks that literally got the crap kicked out of them offroad on a weekly basis. Ball joint replacements were prevalent in the 3 others due to the abuse and the control arms simply broke from the stress.

Even doing a search online about s10 lower a-arm failures netted me next to nothing. That's a pretty damn good track record if you ask me. Your one failure on a lightly driven vehicle means nothing in the grand scheme of things. I'm not telling you all this to make light of the situation, but to show you that **** happens. I'm trying to get you to just suck it up and replace the failed part (or sell the vehicle since you seem to think that the general is out to kill you and your family from the jist of your responses) and move on to another manufacturer so you can find their evils as well. No automanufacturer has ever produced a vehicle that was 100% safe.

Again, since you haven't answered my question yet, did you buy this truck new? How many miles were on it at the time of failure?

If you didn't buy it new, then welcome to the world of the unknown used car. No matter what a seller tells you, you do not know the COMPLETE history of the vehicle and from that you cannot completely say that it was very well maintained over its entire life. Also, if you have over 100k miles on the thing, welcome to the world of higher mileage vehicles. Things go wrong for unexplained reasons.

I could have said the same thing as you about my '94 Intrepid that I had 3 years ago. The steering rack failed at 120k miles and I put the car into the ditch because I couldn't steer it. No real harm, but if that had of happened on a crowded highway, things could have been much worse. Replaced the rack to the tune of $800 (part cost - installed it myself) and went on with life instead of wasting time with fruitless efforts of attaining compensation for a vehicle that was well into it's later years.

I understand your position on this, but having been where you are on more occasions than I would have liked, I also know how useless it is to go after anyone to try to recoupe any losses. In your case, you have to replace the a-arm and possibly some other components. That's cheap. Consider yourself lucky that it did not have much more severe consequences.

 

The ball joints were replaced about 5 years ago and if you look at the amount of corrosion with Ohio salt being used the crack is very recent not 5 years old. He esimated from the crack is less than 6 months old. I have a materials engineer from work coming over tonight to look at it and I am meeting with the Chevy dealer service manager after work.

 

In my opinion, it is all wasted effort. Just buy a replacement a-arm and you will be much further ahead in the end. I am a mechanical engineer with a materials and fatigue concentration. Based off of the age of the vehicle, all bets are off. I highly doubt that the Chevy dealer is going to do much of anything for you but quote you the parts & labor to fix the issue.

Just because the crack is not 5 years old doesn't mean that the damage that led to the crack did not happen that far back.

Just trying to save you some time. I've been in your shoes and tried everything that you are going to try and it gets you no where. You have to consider how much your time is worth to fight the issue. You will quickly realize that you can fix it yourself, without all of this hastle, much faster and cheaper than going through the whole battle.

Just my $0.02. Take it or leave it. Doesn't really much matter to me.

You still haven't answered my questions... Did you buy the vehicle new? How many miles were on it at the time of failure?

 

I took the pics to my local GM dealer and we called somebody at GM from the service parts department. We faxed the pics to them. I got all my parts ordered and got them at cost saving about $500. You should quit giving people advice to quit because if they take it will cost them money. This is the second time I have dealt with GM; I have won both my battles and lost one with Ford. I got my boss’s engine replaced for $500 vs. $5500 in his Cadillac several years ago just by making several phone calls and being persistent. After all the issues with SUVs, tires with Ford and ball joints with Dodge the auto makers are bending over backwards to satisfy every one on failures that could result in lost of life. By the way the ball joints were repalced by the GMC dealer which was a plus since I had the records.