Mud-club
Chat & Social => The Bar - General Chat => Topic started by: Bulli on August 29, 2005, 09:02:09
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Sorry if this is in the wrong spot but it applies to quite a few folk.
Just had a gentle days laning in Lincs and on the way home the rear trailing arm broke. There was no warning, I was doing 50 at the time and was very lucky not to be in hospital right now. The car slid sideways and jumped the curb separating the 2 carriageways. I ended up on the wrong side of the dual carriageway about 2 feet from the wall of a bridge with a 40 foot fall into the river Don.
How it didnt roll im not quite sure- highly skilled driving and maybe having just see the dukes of hazzard??
The reason for the failure was obvious upon inspection. The weld where the tube joins the axle had no penetration at all. These were heavy duty castor corrected ones from a major supplier. I have only had them about a year.The blurb below is from their website. Tuesday should be intresting as the accident has put a flat in one of my tyres , flattened my exhaust and damaged my rear shocks and springs. Not to mention potential loss of life. If there had been anyone in the other lane then the story would be a tragic one.
Dont know how you could check yours if you have them but i wont be refitting these ones again.
TWO REAR
TRAILING ARMS
To cope with the extreme rear travel and articulation achievable on Land Rovers.
Their tubular construction with reinforcing bars ensure that strength is combined with lightness.
The arms can now be shimed to allow the nose of the rear diff to be set parrallel with the transfer box output shaft.
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Bulli,
It seems you are not alone.
A couple of chaps from Belgium were on their way to see said supplier with a set of front radius arms which had apparently fallen apart in a similar way.
I'm not going to voice my more in-depth opinions about copying designs without the engineering research on here, but some of you will have heard them already ;-)
Glad you are OK... give 'em hell !
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A mate of mine is the importer of the company that designed them. They are still built inhouse so he is bringing some over for me today.
Intresting to hear im not alone... they had better get ready!
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Yikes :shock:
I think I'd better go look at mine again....
Nice 2 hear your ok though. :)
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That must have been flippin' scary! When the weld on my axle housing broke (the one that the tie bar goes into), I was doing 15mph tops, and that scared the pants off me when the car started driving sideways.
Glad you're ok.
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Hi Bulli
Sorry to hear about your incident.
I'm looking into purchasing some replacement rear trailing arms.
Please could you send me an email of tha name of the company supplying the said items so I can make a more informed decision when considering who or not to buy from.
I would really appreciate any info or pics of the failing parts if it's not too much trouble.
Kind Regards, gary
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Sorry Bulli
I forgot to put my email address in my last posting :oops:
gary@n-gage4wd.com
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Bulli
Sorry to hear what happened and glad you are ok. If the incident was clearly caused by their product, you should ask for nothing less than complete repair of your vehicle, them to pay the cost of any damage to the carriageway (if 1 year down the line you get a large bill, it may not be easy to get this from them) and maybe even something for the trauma.
If they give you trouble over it, take it to an independant engineer to inspect (or call one out) and then submit the engineers report to them.
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I also have a set of these arms and have had no problems as yet, but knowing the company I am sure if you approach them they will be only too willing to rectify the problem, it may be that they have had a faulty batch and are unaware of the failures you have all informed us about ,
if they are machine welded the machine may not be set right and faults unless reported can go undetected for months or years try them and see what they say.
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Thats the reason i havent jumped in with both size tens and named, names. I have had a look at the same item from someone else today(same cost) and the welding puts the old ones to shame.
Will let you know what happens tomorrow.
Things like this SHOULD never fail - it is life threatening and quality control should ensure faulty product doesnt reach the public.
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thats not good dude
glad you are ok and not hurt
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What will be interesting is what happens next. This is the second example I have heard of now.... I would suggest that a responsible company would issue a product recall... it's all well and good buying off individuals but if there is a chance of a manufacturing defect then it is nothing more than negligence to ignore it.
Bulli.... I can recommend the rear arms from Devon 4x4 or QT services.... they are both well made.
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Nightmare!
Glad you ok Bulli!
:shock:
Maybe i'll get my arms somewhere else then.
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Have a look at the weld on these, same costs. PM me if you want details. The weld on these looks so much more substantial.
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Sods law, just bought a set of the ones you broke :evil:
Never been particularly happy with that companies products so have always used Devon and QT but seeing as they are only a stones throw from me my stupid impatience got the better of me...
I'll be checking my regualrly as they will get hammered on mine :shock:
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Oh and keep us posted Bulli, I am very keen to see what happens now.
Cheers mate and good luck
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sorry to hear that bulli and glad your ok. joe
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I am Really Glad that you are ok! And i am pretty angry that some of these companies are selling shoddy/Life threatening Equiptment!
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that looks nasty :shock: , you were very,very lucky by the sound of it .I hope you get the right answers back from the company in question
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glad you ok mate
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:(scared): :(scared): very very uncool man shouldnt be able to happen! Good to hear your alright though man.Gotta be a very sorry supplier or very stupid if not !
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Pleased to hear that you are in one piece, :wink:
Hope you get satisfaction from company :evil:
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Bully
Why not name names, you haven't said anything libelous about the company in question, just that their product has failed from what appears to be poor welding, that is just stating the truth.
As I am about to lift my Disco's suspension (possibly including castor correction) and have an idea which company it might be (i.e. the one I was going to go to)! it would be nice to know and if neccessary I can discuss this with them so they can give their side of the story. Can't see any problems there.
You could always PM me off forum if you felt this is the better way but I do think it fair to let people know who supplied a potentially faulty part and then let them make up their own mind.
It would be nice to know who the alternatives are from as they look very nice.
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Bully
Why not name names, you haven't said anything libelous about the company in question, just that their product has failed from what appears to be poor welding, that is just stating the truth.
As I am about to lift my Disco's suspension (possibly including castor correction) and have an idea which company it might be (i.e. the one I was going to go to)! it would be nice to know and if neccessary I can discuss this with them so they can give their side of the story. Can't see any problems there.
You could always PM me off forum if you felt this is the better way but I do think it fair to let people know who supplied a potentially faulty part and then let them make up their own mind.
It would be nice to know who the alternatives are from as they look very nice.
i agree with you
its not harassment nor libel as you say
if it was tescos im sure names would be named
mike
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any news today on this?
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News a plenty. Spoke to Colin this morning at Scorpion, he's the owner. Colin was very apologetic and helpful , it seems there was a recall on some that were made (around 100). Colin made no bones that the product failed and it must have come from that batch.
He straight away said he would sort all the problems and look after me.There should be a box arriving tomorrow thats as big as the disco!
The key thing is if you have these check to see if they have numbers stamped on them. There has only been 1 other failure from this batch and all are now stamped for quality control reasons. If you have bought some and they havent got numbers call Colin now.
I feel that I have been told the truth and am happy with the outcome.
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Sods law, just bought a set of the ones you broke :evil:
Never been particularly happy with that companies products so have always used Devon and QT but seeing as they are only a stones throw from me my stupid impatience got the better of me...
I'll be checking my regualrly as they will get hammered on mine :shock:
Seeing the way u drive Ash, I would take em back now and get ur money back incase something bad happens.
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News a plenty. Spoke to Colin this morning at Scorpion, he's the owner. Colin was very apologetic and helpful , it seems there was a recall on some that were made (around 100). Colin made no bones that the product failed and it must have come from that batch.
He straight away said he would sort all the problems and look after me.There should be a box arriving tomorrow thats as big as the disco!
The key thing is if you have these check to see if they have numbers stamped on them. There has only been 1 other failure from this batch and all are now stamped for quality control reasons. If you have bought some and they havent got numbers call Colin now.
I feel that I have been told the truth and am happy with the outcome.
Sounds like their looking after you there.
Good.
A pleasing outcome to a distressing weekend.
are they going to fit it all for you too?
Recovering you motor down to London and sticking all your shiney orange replacment parts on for you?
That would be good.
:D
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That is good news. I like it when a company can stand up and say, yes, sorry, what can we do to fix it for you.
Hope it all goes well.
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Like your idea Jake, but by the time it reached London I could have had most of it fitted. Just got to check out my propshaft as i think it took a hell of a beating. When I had managed to stop had a look and it was at the end of the splines.
Colin was spot on, even to the point of offering to change the springs if it doesn't sit level.
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I think that with a failure such as this any company should find out via their records where they sold the potentially faulty batch to and they should recall them in the interests of safety.
Seeing the posts above it appears that the company looked like they knew that the arm could had been faulty prior to you having your incident. This isnt very good at all, no wonder they cant do enough for you!
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TBH they have no choice but to put your motor right and even from the photo you posted I can see what you mean about the welding. All this quality control is a bit bolting-the-stable-door though isn't it, something of an admision.
If they know who bought the parts they MUST contact the owners, to ignore it now would be criminaly negligant (IN MY OPINION).
On the subject of uprated/cranked rear arms, I bought mine from Gwenn Lewis and couldn't be happier. Ok they are a bit heavy but that's because they take a standard Britpart rear arm and weld a second tube over the top of that (OTT, get it :lol: ). It's effectively 2 arms in one and the welding looks very good.
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Oh, and the Gwenn Lewis one were cheaper than the things I think you may have just broken too.
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the guys from there are OK but they didnt seem at all cheap at Donnington. Their propshafts were way over priced. I did buy some stickers from them though.
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I saw one of these break on a challenge event, must be near a year ago now.(sorry, not good on dates)
Your picture of the lack of penetration on the weld is exactly the same thing i saw.
I vowed then, never to get in a truck with that sort of suspension as i felt ill thinking about the consequenses of it failing at speed.
Thanks God your OK.