car wheel decided to escape

Whee!!!

Thank God we were driving 2 miles an hour in a parking lot. We're all fine.

Anyone care to estimate the damage we did and how much the shop will want to charge us?

It's a 2001 LEXUS GS 300 4 door sedan.

Geez, wow, I'm turning pale looking at this.

I'm glad you're safe. You may not realize it, but Providence/The Fates have given you a pass. On the freeway, this would have been a catastrophic failure.

How did your independent mechanic not catch this imminent failure? They rattle the joints when it's up on the hoist, looking for wear. Big miss IMO.

It looks like substantial damage to the front end, which is expensive. But you may be lucky based on the low speed event.

Yikes.

Boy, it really is hard to give you an idea on what you would need to pay but it is going to be a few pennies for sure.

You need to repair the front suspension there. The ball joints separated even at slow speed probably has lead to secondary damage.  Your rim looks beat up and might need replacement. I would not trust your brake line at this point.

If this side went, I can't imagine the other side is very far off from having its own issues.

Maybe a few more pictures we could give you specifics but you are going to need quite a bit of overhaul on it to be safe in my opinion.

One of my brothers hit a pothole, in MI, this was PART of the result. He was not in a parking lot, but on the road, doing about 35mph. It launched the car into a tree and sent the steering wheel THROUGH the drivers seat, so it looked as though the back seat was where the driving was supposed to be done - well... minus the majority of the actual steering wheel, which also broke and was left embedded in the driver's seat. This happened the year before seatbelts were made mandatory, and on impact, John was, instead, thrown out of the window, and away from the car. I count y'all as EXTREMELY blessed (regardless of the repair costs)!

That said, it could be less $$$$$ to replace yet another car...

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:
Anyone care to estimate the damage we did andhow much the shop will want to charge us?

Do it yourself, and you can add to your oddball points. Make sure you post it right, they have rules after all. https://permies.com/p/2023099

Looks like the cost will be about $650, a wheel, a weekend, and a few additional odd ball points. I wouldn't fix the fender if it was my car.

I'm glad you're safe.

^ Excellent post.

A wheel alignment may be needed though, after repair. This is not a farm wagon pulled by Bessie the Cow.

Hmmm... doing it myself. Is there such a thing as a publicly available Workshop Information System? One was invaluable for me working on my last car. Until stupid happened.

Or would it be called a Workshop Manual? https://workshopmanuals.org/product/lexus-gs300-workshop-repair-manual-download-1998-2005-pdf/ Maybe this is a legitimate source?

Oh, and the all-important question, could this work all be done on floor jacks?

Joylynn, I have to back off on my previous post. As much as I love DIY for many things, there is no way I personally would consider doing this repair myself. Please hire a professional you can trust. This is life and death stuff.

Thanks Doug. This is what I've been thinking. I would however like to have some knowlege of what the mechnic is talking about.

There is a shop we trust and the car is presently sitting at this shop. Years back, they had the opportunity to fleece us. We left paying under $50. They were not given the opportunity to look at this car previously.

Their front end guy is booked presently, so I have a few days to look things up.

I've been putting off finding recources for fixing simpler things that will fail. Now I have been motivated.

Oooh! A Parts store with interactive exploded diagrams listing part names and numbers! Here's the link for my next problem.


Peter, a very big thank you for the time you spent looking up those parts.

If you want to repair the fender, grab the paint code and go to a junk yard with a nationwide parts lookup.  I have spent $50 more to have a fender shipped from somewhere, but it was already painted to match so it saved $$$$ in the end. I have also bought entire vehicles with blown motors because it was cheaper than just the hood and fender.

If it were me I would replace both control arms. Replacement control arms like one from Dorman or Moog include ball joints. Other manufacturers do as well but make sure before ordering.  Hard to tell if anything happened to the steering rack, did it extend beyond travel limit? Google fu control arms, not tremendously expensive. If you survived a Saab you can do this. At such a low speed of travel I wouldn't think that the strut got tweaked. It's a failure I see pretty often on cars.

Well, did I survive the saab? It still mocks me in the driveway. Sigh.

Robert, please define travel limit. Mileage on the car?

The rack and pinion assembly is what transfers the right and left push and pull to the wheels. Inside the tube are two racks, bars with teeth on them that push the tie rod (the only real connection left attached to your wayward wheel). There is a seal in that tube that keeps power steering fluid contained. When the wheel zigged when it should have zagged did it go farther than it should have? Did the tie rod get bent? There will be an inner and outer tie rod the inner is straight and screws into the rack and the outer has the hiem joint (articulating ball) and hooks on to the steering knuckle. The steering knuckle pivots on the ball joints. The control arms lets the wheel go up and down, the strut gives the cush to the tush.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:
Peter, a very big thank you for the time you spent looking up those parts.

No worries, I buy a lot of stuff off their site so I can navigate it pretty quickly. I don't think it's dangerous to do it yourself if you take your time while thinking things through, and there are lots of youtube videos on how to replace parts for basically every vehicle if you run into a problem.

Back when I was in high school and I didn't have any money I stacked three washers on the bottom of a tie rod nut to "tighten up" the steering. It was fine for awhile, but one night I was coming home from deer hunting and it popped off. The right wheel turned all the way right , and I turned the left wheel all the way left which plowed up enough dirt to stop the truck about a foot away from a 18 inch spruce tree. I wanted to call my dad to come get me, but I didn't have any cell phone service. I ended up popping the socket of the tie rod end back onto the ball with a hydraulic jack, and limping the truck back home at about 5-10 mph. It popped off one more time on the way home, but it wasn't scary since I was going slow. Moral of the story: Don't be cheap when it comes to steering and brakes.

My 3/4 ton Dodge diesel had a recall for its ball joints and tie rod ends, so I took it into the dealer. When I got it back it sounded funny, so I took a tape measure to the wheels. It was towed out about 1/4 of an inch, when the front tires should be straight ahead to towed in 1/16 to 3/32 inch. If I had left it that way it would have ruined my front tires in 2-5 thousand miles. They also forgot to reconnect the horn when they replaced the airbag, because it had been recalled too. I'm not opposed to taking things to a shop, and when I'm busy I have some trusted mechanics that I take vehicles and equipment to. However, I would recommend that you become mechanically savvy enough to to know when the work you had hired done is terrible.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:Or would it be called a Workshop Manual? https://workshopmanuals.org/product/lexus-gs300-workshop-repair-manual-download-1998-2005-pdf/ Maybe this is a legitimate source?

Oh, and the all-important question, could this work all be done on floor jacks?

No, don't do this with just floor jacks holding the car up.
You need jack stands, and if you are working on gravel you need to have 2x10s at least under them.
And some kind of wedges blocking the back wheels, to keep it from rolling.

Looks like the ball joint broke, probably has been making a clunking sound for a while.
I'm not sure what it would take to press a new ball joint into the hub.
Doesn't look like there is much room above it so the bearing might need to be removed.
Sometimes taking just the hub into the shop can save you money and help you learn some wrenching skills.
Looks like you need a new wheel speed sensor, the wire anyway, looks pretty stretched. ABS light will be on.

I'm not sure how the lexus DIY community is.
For me it would be time to check for a utube video.
but there are probably 10 videos on how to change a VW ball joint, ha.
Or you could join a lexus forum and post your pictures there.  
Someone might even have a part for you.

On a 2001, this is where a parts car would come in handy.
If you really want to keep it going for cheap, you might need one.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:Or would it be called a Workshop Manual? https://workshopmanuals.org/product/lexus-gs300-workshop-repair-manual-download-1998-2005-pdf/ Maybe this is a legitimate source?

Oh, and the all-important question, could this work all be done on floor jacks?

Howdy,

I "learned" to dismantle vehicles at a young age and have been working on all my own vehicles since.(15-72)

It looks like the #14(lower ball joint) and #11(lower control arm) are broken. (above workshop download)  What else remains to be seen.

I would attempt to repair myself and would probably look at something like this,

https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/lexus,2001,gs300,3.0l+l6,1373835,suspension,front+end+kit,15413

Left lower control arm is not in the kit, but is available here,

https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/lexus,2001,gs300,3.0l+l6,1373835,suspension,control+arm,10401


Yes, I have more than enough tools. air impact, floor jacks, jack stands...and do buy parts from RockAuto. I do learn alot from YouTube videos. Some mechanics/repair shops buy parts from their own source, so prices will vary. The dealer is usually most expensive.

How did things turn out?

Thanks for asking, John. We took it to a repair shop. They called today, and said it's ready to be picked up. But I gotta wait until Friday, cause payday!

More details when I see the bll.

They replaced...
Control arm, lower assembly
Steering Tie rod end
Ball joint


They did not tack up the wheel well cavity liner. It's a thin plastic/nylon/something. It's hanging and rubbing on the tire.





We'll tack that back up today. Anyone know the name of the fasteners that should be the permanent solution?

Body trim retainer, aka Christmas tree fastener.  I use these on some raised beds by drilling a 1/4 inch hole in the raised bed frame and push it through the agri-cloth it holds the agri-cloth inplace and makes it easy to remove or keep fastened on one side. I have but not always use a shower curtain grommet to go through the cloth or greenhouse film when I use them this way.

Someone raised questions about the condition of the other front steering assembly. Did you have the entire front end steering and linkages checked? One side let go in a parking lot at low speed … will you be as lucky a second time?

That is the exact thing Robert. Thank you!

Oh, and an alignment was done.

We talked to the mechanc, he said that the other side felt secure. No noises are emanating from it durring travel either. And saving will be implemented for replacement of it anyway. Of course, that money will go to the next manifested problem instead.

And yes the ABS light is now on. I tried to look up the mentioned tire speed sensor. No luck findng it.