That's What I Get For Putting It Off: Control Arm Failure

"AkursedX" (akursedx) 07/17/2020 at 15:44 • Filed to: RX-8, Autocross, recalls, recallopnik, Mazda

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This past weekend was filled with autocross. I had a test and tune on Saturday where I made some really positive damper adjustments to my RX-8 and had it feeling great. Then on Sunday the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! had their first points event. I was feeling pretty good about both the car and my driving. Unfortunately my day was over halfway through my second run.....

When you order Lightning McQueen off of Wish....

What you see here is that the lip that keeps the ball joint captive in the lower control arm has cracked and failed which resulted in the ball joint popping out of it as it was unloaded going around a right hand sweeper.

Below is a slideshow of the incident. I heard the workstation guys yell out telling me to ‘STOP!’ and in the time between me hearing what they said and my brain registering it was when the tire got re-loaded and put out of place.

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Inside the car, it felt like a tire had a massive blowout. When I got out and saw the tires all fine, I was a bit confused. Then when I looked at the passenger side, I noticed how the front had far more than the -3.25* of camber it usually has.

Right away, I had a pretty good idea that the damage was in the lower control arm. I looked through the wheel and confirmed that as I saw the lower control arm resting on the wheel.

Fortunately we were able to get the car jacked up and I then realigned the whole wheel assembly and dropped the ball, which was still attached to the spindle back into the cup and proceeded to limp it off course. I felt worse for holding everyone else up more than I cared about the failure.

Stance Bro!

As I got back to paddock, I hadn’t even started formulating a plan to get my car the 127 miles back home when one of my friends was calling a buddy of his to help me out with a tow home. I also had many other offers of help and/or tows and rides home which was quite awesome and a testament to the great autocross community we have here in WNY.

About an hour and a half later, Ben who runs !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!   made his way over to the Seneca Army Depot where we run and we got my car loaded up and on our way. The drive home was quite nice and filled with lots of awesome car talk and Ben will definitely be getting business from me.

Instead of getting my car towed back home, I had it dropped directly at the local Mazda dealership. Normally I would just fix this type of thing myself, but you see, I already knew that !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and they would get fixed for free.

How did I know this? Because I had previously had my car at the dealership for something else (A compression test, before I just bought my own tester I think) and we talked about the control arm recall. They wanted to do it but I had already installed aftermarket bushings in them.

I figured that as long as I inspect them on a regular basis that I’d be fine. I put my car up on a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! before every autocross weekend to inspect everything just to make sure I’m good. I was clearly wrong. As you’ll see in later photos, there is no way I could have seen the cracking of the ball joint cup before it failed.

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Being that I dropped my car off on a Sunday, I had to wait until Monday morning to talk to the service department. I made sure to have a pic of the VIN and the mileage ready for them and we got all the recall work in order.

Aside from the control arm replacement, there was also a recall to replace the fuel tank trim ring gaskets along with the top half of the fuel pump housing because of leaks and cracking. I had to explain to them that I had replaced my fuel pump with that of a series-2 (2009-2011) RX-8 because of a fuel starvation issue that the S1 pump experiences on left hand sweepers. All I had to do was sign something at pickup saying that the work couldn’t be done.

You can see on the bottom control arm that only a little bit of the lip that holds the ball joint in is left.

Even though they had to order parts, I had a phone call by Thursday saying my car was ready to pick up. I was at work already so I had to wait until this morning to see it. Fortunately the service guy was quite cool and brought the control arms out for me so I could see the failure. In my examination, I could see that there was various discoloration in the aluminum indicating that at least part of the housing was cracked well before the final failure. In the above photo, you can see that the boot for the ball joint totally covers the lip so you cant really visually inspect this to see if you need to replace it or not.

My pretty, new control arm.

So, lesson learned. When you know about a recall, just get it done. I drove around on these and did hundreds of autocross runs knowing that this part might fail for at least 2 years. I’m a dumbass for that and I am also very fortunate that it happened on a closed course in a controlled environment. And I am even more lucky that I manage to get away with minimal damage.

My tire burned through a few spots on the fender cover, but other than that, I managed to come out of this rather unscathed.

In the end, I was only out a little bit of cash for the tow and I missed out getting some solid runs on what was a great autocross course. I’m quite lucky that was all I was out.

If you are wondering about open recalls on your vehicle, all you have to do is go over to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . In fact, I think if you read through this, you should just click on the link and check to make sure you are good. And if you do, call up the dealer and schedule and appointment to get them done. Don’t be like me.

The author, who goes by Joe in real life, is an avid automotive enthusiast with a particular passion for Mazda rotaries. You can find him at many Western New York SCCA and surrounding area events autocrossing his RX-8. He can be reached AkursedX @gmail.com

Arrivederci > AkursedX 07/17/2020 at 15:52

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That’s nuts - glad that you came out primarily unscathed and a free repair is always appreciated, lol.

Discerning > AkursedX 07/17/2020 at 16:55

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Wait... can those things get over -3 degrees of camber on stock control arms? That’s impressive if so. Or do you have camber plates?

Don' t feel too bad. At least you didn’t have a blowout at highway speeds that resulted in exterior cosmetic damage. That's the fun we were dealt in the last week.

MM54 > AkursedX 07/17/2020 at 16:58

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Yikes, as you said it’s a good thing it happened at autocross and not on, say, an on-ramp.

Will you be at  MBR this sunday?

AkursedX > Discerning 07/17/2020 at 16:58

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Its a double wishbone so no camber plates, but I do have offset upper control arm bushings that push me to that level. There are also offset bushings for the knuckle that can put you over -4*. I don't feel I need that much unless I went to street-prepared class and was then running slicks.

ItalianJobR53 - now with added 'MERICA and unreliability > Discerning 07/17/2020 at 17:21

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Stock control arms with non offset bushings and I can get -3.8 on my C5

Its lowered of course

ItalianJobR53 - now with added 'MERICA and unreliability > AkursedX 07/17/2020 at 17:21

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Glad you and the car are OK!

Dr_Watson > AkursedX 07/17/2020 at 18:06

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Tangent. How's that venue? With nothing going on in WNY region I've been going to MBR in Erie because it's quite a bit closer to Buffalo. 

Discerning > AkursedX 07/17/2020 at 18:20

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Ah, yes. Of course. Double wishbone. Knew that and brain farted

Discerning > ItalianJobR53 - now with added 'MERICA and unreliability 07/17/2020 at 18:22

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You have coilover s though, right? Most I could get back then was a little more than   -2

AkursedX > Dr_Watson 07/17/2020 at 18:32

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The courses are longer with faster overall speeds. There is a transition from asphalt to concrete and back that is a fun element. The size and openess make it probably the best site in the area IMO, although I really don’t like the drive (127 miles to Seneca and MBR is about 80 for me)

There is usually 80-100+ people there and competition is a lot more serious. I know that there is an ‘attitude’ that seems to come across the FLR guys that have rubbed some people the wrong way and the MBR region seems to be the venue that the people put off by that will usually go to. I really don’t get involved in that and I generally get along with everyone but I have always enjoyed the MBR guys and wish I could get down there but my schedule just hasn’t worked out.

I am a member of the WNY SCCA core team (registration mainly) and it has been frustrating dealing with the stadium. We are still trying to get some events there but who knows at this point.

AkursedX > MM54 07/17/2020 at 18:33

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No unfortunately. I have to work. I really hope to get down once or twice as I really enjoy running with those guys but work gets in the way alot.

MM54 > Dr_Watson 07/17/2020 at 18:55

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Heading to MBR this Sunday?

ItalianJobR53 - now with added 'MERICA and unreliability > Discerning 07/17/2020 at 19:17

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I do but they bolt onto the same mounting points as the shocks do so the geometry should be the same. You could lower your car with lowering bolts on the leafs if you want...

Dr_Watson > MM54 07/17/2020 at 19:45

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yep, hopefully the weather report is right and it doesn’t rain until after 5PM. 

Dr_Watson > AkursedX 07/17/2020 at 19:53

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Sucks about the stadium. That was a pretty decent location the couple times I went. I’ve been to FLR before (have a trophy from when I was a novice) , never really rubbed me the wrong way. Though I used to sim race a lot with one of the pro class guys so he introduced me to people. Maybe that helps.

Sounds like I should make the trek out to Seneca sometime. I need a bigger track. The MBR courses tend to be rather tight due to the confines of the speedway bowl. Rather frustrating for a TT RS. It’s basically never on boost. 

Discerning > ItalianJobR53 - now with added 'MERICA and unreliability 07/17/2020 at 20:24

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True, but I’m pretty sure if your car is lower with your coilovers then that could be why you are able to get more camber.

On stock bolts, the lowest I could go was -2.2 in the front iirc

ItalianJobR53 - now with added 'MERICA and unreliability > Discerning 07/17/2020 at 20:52

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For sure

With lowering bolts you could likely get around -3...

zipfuel > AkursedX 07/17/2020 at 20:54

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I wanna know about the neighbour kid and the paint stripper...

Similar thing happened to a friend of mine in high school; his mentally unstable neighbour dumped stripper on his car roof because he somehow thought my friend was bullying kids at school (he unequivocally wasn’t). Fortunately it was crappy old Nissan Primera estate so nothing of value was lost.

MM54 > Dr_Watson 07/17/2020 at 21:45

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See you there!

I agree about the rain holding off... and I’m hoping there’s a breeze or it’s going to be hot working the track

Dr_Watson > MM54 07/17/2020 at 23:08

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It was a 95° oven of sun death last time so it can’t be anything but better this weekend. Feel free to say hi. My car is easy to spot.

Stef Schrader > AkursedX 07/18/2020 at 01:10

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Oh no! Glad it’s fixed now, though.

i86hotdogs > AkursedX 07/18/2020 at 06:14

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Stance bros are looking at those pics and saying, “I see nothing wrong here”

AkursedX > Dr_Watson 07/18/2020 at 15:04

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I think a TTRS would be alot more fun out at Seneca than MBR for sure. And we're still trying to get the stadium for this season, but I honestly can't say one way or another if it'll pan out. Good luck if you're going to MBR tomorrow!

AkursedX > zipfuel 07/18/2020 at 15:12

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Basically the kid has had a tendency to wander over to my house to see if my kids can play. Apparently we weren’t home and I had left a what I thought was totally empty can of paint stripper by my garage door from something I was doing earlier. Him, being bored and curious found it and proceeded to spray it on my door, mirror and front headlight. I found it the next day and honestly was quite mad. But I calmed down and talked to his parents, who I genuinely like and get along with. Instead of getting a repaint, which would have cost $400+, I found a door and headlight at a yard nearby in Canada that I simply swapped out.

The paint doesn’t match because I had an old lady back into my parked car in a restaurant driveway that I had re-skinned and blended two years previously.

My RX8 has become more of a track car/beater so I really don't care what it looks like anymore as long as it's driving right

Dr_Watson > AkursedX 07/18/2020 at 17:03

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I assume the stadium prospect isn’t helped by the new era deal implosion.

Thanks for the recon. I ultimately just need to get to Watkins Glen for some real fun. But that has to wait until next summer. This summer I'm just working on getting some cheap fun while I kill the OE tires. Track duty requires a sizeable investment in brakes, tires, and camber plates before the car is fit for duty. 

zipfuel > AkursedX 07/18/2020 at 19:04

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I joke that my car is 50 shades of gray. I’ve had a bunch of warranty rust repairs done on my VW and none of them match. Weirdly the respray colour is always lighter than the original which you would have expected to fade over time.