[PrideRed]

Got some details from Cauvery Ford Mangalore:

As per the dealer " The customer had reported that while travelling at 55-60 Km/hr speed , tyre got burst and vehicle travelled for about 30-40 feet before coming to halt.
The analysis from tyre manufacturer was carried out to verify if there was manufacturing defect w.r.to tyre. The report from tyre manufacturer has confirmed of external impact no manufacturing defect.
Because something that hit the tyre , Left front wheel had moved back and hit into “ A” pillar causing damage to front left door and Left pillar and at the same time causing damage to wind shield.
One of the picture also clearly indicates that front bumper(at corner) had scratched/hit something.
The car did not have any manufacturing defects w.r.to axle/arm/Alloy wheels".

To me it looks more like an accident.The car had hit the culvert possibly(seen in the picture), resulting in an accident. Axle breaking, tire busrt, Alloy wheel break? I don't think there can be so many manufacturing defect in a car and that too all break at the same time!

One thing I noticed with Ford dealers is, in-case of any manufacturing defect, the item is replaced free of cost and no questions asked(Based on my experience). So if there is a manufacturing defect for real, I am pretty sure, it would get covered under warranty.

@Moderators: I am not against the claims of Owner or supporting ford or the dealer, I am just posting the dealers analysis/perspective so that we have opinion from both parties.

[wild child]

Originally Posted by black_rider

Went through the pictures again.

Look at the encircled part of attached image. Tie rod looks bent.

Hello Black Rider.

The portion which you have encircled and highlighted appears to have bent because of hitting the ground.

Also, the same photo clearly shows the CV (Constant Velocity) joint detached from the gearbox and lying on the road.

Team,

I feel the CV joint could have snapped because

a) The driver slipped the clutch and accelerated suddenly (or)

b) of sudden downshifting by 2 or 3 gears (i.e., downshifting from 5th gear to 3rd or 2nd) and hard acceleration simultaneously.

Just my two cents.

Cheers

[Jomz]

Looking more at the pictures, I'm more convinced that it is a passenger side lower ball joint failure. Let us analyse failure of 3 systems,

Attached a schematic of the system.In the first picture.


In this system, if the tie rods breaks- it means steering will not work. The upper and lower ball joints still hold the wheel and the wheel follows the path of the car due to caster, You will have a dead steering but not wheel falling off.

The following is a description of a car with a tie rod failure. The driver was able to stop the car.

http://community.cartalk.com/discuss...ie-rod-failure

and a picture of the Dodge ram with tie rods failed,2nd picture.


2nd case is axle breaks. With an axle breaking, what happens is power does not get to the wheels. None of the wheel geometry is disturbed, so the car comes to a smooth halt. Brakes and steering should be operational.


3rd case is lower ball joint failure. The failure might be because of an impact or so. The wheel is moved from its regular position. The axle will be pulled out and tie rods would be bent, because the wheel swings out due to the cars motion. The pictures in the incident looks to me like this case.


The following link ( is a repost) , shows various cars with lower ball joint failed.

http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/lowerballjoint/

And a video of upper ball joint failing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHt8iKZcAxE

Note that this was the upper ball joint, the lower one still supported the wheel and the Durango was able to make a safe stop.

I would think this is still a warranty problem. Even with a tire burst Or small hit, Suspension is not supposed to collapse.

[Jaggu]

Originally Posted by GTO

Poornima got a conference call from Ford. Ford experts are launching an investigation into this incident

Finally - look forward to the root cause of this accident.

Attachment 1441212

Very good and responsive from their side, if they can conclude the same with evidence nothing like it. Very honestly it should be easy to figure out by having a close look at lower arm, wheel assembly and body panels. A impact unless it was a minor grace (which shouldn't break parts), should be easy to pin point.

Hope they put this to rest soon.

[sudhirnam]

Originally Posted by PrideRed

Got some details from Cauvery Ford Mangalore:


To me it looks more like an accident.The car had hit the culvert possibly(seen in the picture), resulting in an accident. Axle breaking, tire busrt, Alloy wheel break? I don't think there can be so many manufacturing defect in a car and that too all break at the same time!

It is hard to speculate just from the images.
The passenger side front bumper does have some scratches (left bottom in the image). Can a tire burst or axle failure make up the scratches in front part of the bumper? But the culvert looks taller than the scratch height.
I do sympathize with the owner who had to go through this trauma and hope they will be compensated, if it is a manufacture problem.
Eagerly waiting for what Ford comes up with their investigation.

[anachronix]

Thanks GTO for sharing some more pictures. I have a few observations/questions and I thought I would just share.

The incident seem to have occured on a fairly clean bit of road, the tarmac looks very clean which is seen in this picture. The red highlight is to the point where I can see tire marks from on that clean bit of road.



In this picture of the wheel!

The red highlight: There is fair bit of muck that seem to be on the wheel, its not the form of muck that gets picked up during rains on the wheels. The kum-kum on the hub cap is still fairly clean. The muck seems to be there before the incident.

The yellow highlight: There are evident bruises on the wheels right at a certain point very close to where the tire has burst and lost air. But fairly in sequence with the muck that is picked up on the lower part of the wheel.

The green highlight: That's exactly the point right behind the bruises where the crack seems to have started on the alloy wheel.



We could argue that the bruises happened when the suspension broke, but in this picture its the inside of the wheel that was dragged all the from the point the tire marks seem to have appeared. The outside of the wheel primarily got in contact with the body and those marks are evidently seen and that is normal.



I think its going well with the dealer's observations as shared by PrideRed on this thread!

[dhanushs]

Originally Posted by black_rider

Look at the encircled part of attached image. Tie rod looks bent.

Hi black rider, I did notice the steering rack, and the bent tie tod. However, if the outside end of the tie rod broke/came off, and the whole wheel + suspension assembly is dragged backwards with the rod sticking out straight at the back, the rod will bend similarly. Hence, I still go ahead with my hypothesis.

However: the below post:

Originally Posted by PrideRed

Got some details from Cauvery Ford Mangalore:

As per the dealer " The customer had reported that while travelling at 55-60 Km/hr speed , tyre got burst and vehicle travelled for about 30-40 feet before coming to halt.

Even though it doesnt say the vehicle hit something, there is also a chance the vehicle did hit something, and the lower arm failed. For forming a concrete theory, we will need more photos, especially of the tie rod ends.

The reason, why I'm not so inclined on the 'hit something' hypothesis is because the alloy has sheared off and by seeing the lip of the rim. Also, I've had a hand full of nice and super misahps with my two fords and tata vehicles, and higher speeds, but apart from a bent rim and a torn tyre, the suspension did hold on. Even the strut/apron alignment hasnt changed in the fords.

Originally Posted by wild child

Team,

I feel the CV joint could have snapped because

a) The driver slipped the clutch and accelerated suddenly (or)

b) of sudden downshifting by 2 or 3 gears (i.e., downshifting from 5th gear to 3rd or 2nd) and hard acceleration simultaneously.

Sir, sorry if I sound rude, but I can safely say even if you try doing the same for a whole day continuously, the first thing to go will be your clutch, then may be gearbox, and if your revvs go crazy while downshifting may be inside the engine. But, NEVER the driveshaft. The driveshaft is designed with enough tolerences, that with a stock engine, its hard to achieve this.

[wild child]

Originally Posted by dhanushs

The driveshaft is designed with enough tolerences, that with a stock engine, its hard to achieve this.

Hello Sir.

Appreciate your comments.

I too understand that it is really difficult to snap a drive shaft.

Maybe this CV joint was a lemon and it gave way on sudden hard acceleration/downshifting.

However, let's wait and see what the Ford guys have to narrate.

Cheers

[IndigoXLGrandDi]

Originally Posted by black_rider

I suspect the steering tie rod on passenger side. It must've broke at speed, causing this wheel to toe out, pull back on the axle, lower joint and suspension arm, which broke the lower ball joint and tore the axle CV joint.

You may see that the lower arm is heavily twisted, suggesting that it was pulled by the wheel.

Axle does not locate a wheel, so its breakage cannot cause suspension to come apart like this. Its the wheel which toed outwards, and pulled out the axle along with it.

Sorry for being off-topic.

But similar thing had happened with my brother's i20 Asta Diesel around 3-3.5 years ago on city roads. At that time too, the axle alongwith the right wheel came off. But as the speed was very less, nothing major happened. Only thing my brother told me that the front wheel had gone over a ladies watch fallen on the road, and next happened was this. We had to lift the front right end (the wheel well part) and pushed the car to move towards side of road.

[djpeesh]

Originally Posted by wild child

Hello Black Rider.

The portion which you have encircled and highlighted appears to have bent because of hitting the ground.

Also, the same photo clearly shows the CV (Constant Velocity) joint detached from the gearbox and lying on the road.

Team,

I feel the CV joint could have snapped because

a) The driver slipped the clutch and accelerated suddenly (or)

b) of sudden downshifting by 2 or 3 gears (i.e., downshifting from 5th gear to 3rd or 2nd) and hard acceleration simultaneously.

Just my two cents.

Cheers

Good analysis, only the car is an automatic...

[Jeroen]

Although difficult to estimate exactly, how long do we think those skid marks really are? I would say 40-50 meters perhaps which most likely would put the speed of the vehicle way above the 55-60 km/h

[wild child]

Originally Posted by djpeesh

Good analysis, only the car is an automatic...

Djpeesh !

Thanks for pointing that out.

I didn't notice it. My bad.

Wild Child

[Rehaan]

Look at the scratches on the front bumper...

I can't imagine any way that those sort of scratches would come just from the axle dislodging, unless the fender panel pulled the front bumper down to the road as it warped.

Even then, it looks more like a brush against something vertical, rather than the road. Take a look, I've made the image brighter:


I wonder if the scratch matches the culvert wall height?


That, combined with the fact that :
a) The road narrows over that culvert
b) It's a new car - the driver might not be familiar with the width etc?
c) The sound of the tyre brushing the culvert could have been confused for the blow-out that the driver mentioned they heard

Perhaps there was an oncoming vehicle just at the time the EcoSport was crossing the culvert?

Lastly:
1) It looks like the Tie-Rod was still connected after the tyre went wonky (see the way it is bent)
2) It looks like the mount on the lower arm was also connected (since it is warped/twisted)
3) The front of the lower arm looks like it might have taken a bashing. Hard to tell in the pictures, but a closer cleaning and examination should be able to verify this.



Now, coming to my point; if the tie-rod, and lower arm (+ strut) were all connected (as assumed above), and the axle popped out, I don't think it would cause the wheel to dislodge. In fact, the car would probably roll along fine even if the left axle was removed...

There's a high likelihood that an external force was involved.

I think a closer examination of the scene & the vehicle would clear things up!

[a4anurag]

Originally Posted by Rehaan

b) It's a new car - the driver might not be familiar with the width etc?

Perhaps there was an oncoming vehicle just at the time the EcoSport was crossing the culvert?

This does speak for the scratches on the lower end of the bumper just like the ones seen on my Ertiga when it brushed one frisky biker and a culvert too.



PS: You have good eye for detail!

Let's see what Ford comes up with the analysis.

[iamahunter]

Originally Posted by Rehaan

Look at the scratches on the front bumper...

I can't imagine any way that those sort of scratches would come just from the axle dislodging, unless the fender panel pulled the front bumper down to the road as it warped.

Even then, it looks more like a brush against something vertical, rather than the road. Take a look, I've made the image brighter:
Attachment 1441663

I wonder if the scratch matches the culvert wall height?
Attachment 1441664

That, combined with the fact that :
a) The road narrows over that culvert
b) It's a new car - the driver might not be familiar with the width etc?
c) The sound of the tyre brushing the culvert could have been confused for the blow-out that the driver mentioned they heard

Perhaps there was an oncoming vehicle just at the time the EcoSport was crossing the culvert?

Something similar had come to my mind when I saw the images.
But the question how fast does the vehicle has to be, for the axle to break down?
Because, if the car was at higher speed, it would have probably spun off the road or rolled on the impact.
Looking at the image, its clear that the car has moved in quite a controlled manner.

So is the axle so fragile to break at lower speeds?
It probably should not be.