I hope I get this right. I'll get some additional info from the shop tomorrow to verify.

I have a 2005 C6 with about 86K miles on it. First, I only drive this car on the street - no racing. I have hit some pot holes over the years and sometimes hard.

I was hearing a squeak on the right side and took it into the shop to see if they could ID it. Long story short, one of the top A arm serts had pulled out of the frame and the other bolt had snapped in half. It could be that the bolt broke as we heard a loud bang earlier driving down the freeway but hadn't noticed that we hit anything.

Has anyone had or heard of this issue? Seems to me that the suspension should be stronger than that. GM is stonewalling.

Thanks

 

Why do you think GM is stonewalling? You have an 8 year old car and the warranty expired long ago. It isn't a common problem and the issue may be due to something somebody did to the car Vs the way GM built it. How many times have those bolts been loosened and tightened over the years when the wheel are aligned.

Watch Lou Gigilotti's video where he drives over a 4x4 at speed to demonstrate the strength of the suspension mounts.

Bill

 

I haven't heard of your problem, so it's definitely not a weak point in the suspension system!!

I assume you're talking about these bolts that hold the upper A-arm to the frame:




Those bolts are not a problem unless, like Bill said, they've been loosened/tightened numerous times during alignments.

My concern would be that perhaps somebody didn't tighten them to spec last time you had an alignment, although most alignment shops won't even touch those bolts - they adjust camber with the eccentrics on the lower control arms, unless they were messing with caster.

Here's that LG Motorsports video Bill mentioned. Lou is showing the strength of the shock mounts, but it shows the overall strength of the whole system, and you can see those upper bolts in the video:




Good luck getting a good repair on it, but it sounds like it shouldn't have done any significant damage to your car, and hopefully only a thread insert and bolts will fix it!!

Let us know how it goes!!

Bob

 

It should be a fairly simple fix. If thats your only damage and they want to charge you more than an hours labor take it somewhere else.

 

when you get it fixed have studs installed. Hardbar sells em or you can get the pfadt camber kit which has the studs along with the camber eccentric plates
studs will prevent your problem from happening again.


Hardbar:
COMBO DEAL - Camber Kit for C5/C6/C6 Z06 AND Stud Kit for C5/C6:
http://hardbarusa.com/hardbar/produc...products_id=56



Just the studs:
http://hardbarusa.com/hardbar/produc...products_id=42

Pfadt:
Pfadt C6 Camber Kit
http://www.pfadtracing.com/catalog/p...products_id/52

Note: RPI tuning sells these cheap and has 5 to 10% discounts. I believe theyre running a sale right now and you should be able to get the kit for less than 300 shipped

 

Stronger than what? Anything mechanical can fail when the forces exceed the design limits. Maybe it's not GM's responsibility.

 

An 8 year old car that you most likely bought used...........

 

Nope, bought it new. Interesting assumption.

 

Maybe not. Just checking to see if it was a common issue. Apparently not.

 

Thank you for the info.

 

Thanks for the tip.

 

Thanks. I don't understand how this happened but at least I know it wasn't common.

 

I know this thread is old, but just had this exact thing happen this evening. The wife was leaving work and turned out of her parking space and the right front suspension just collapsed. Car is totally immobile and to make matters worse, the car is on the top floor of a parking garage, it's blocking 3 parking spaces and half of an entrance ramp. Called 6 towing companies and no one has anything small enough to get in to retrieve it. Couldn't do anything but leave it and maybe stop by the dealership in the morning to get help there. We had the squeaking from that side mentioned by the OP prior to this and could never figure out where it was coming from. Could barely see under there, but it looks like the hub has broken off. Anyone else have something similar? Am I looking at a complete suspension replacement on that side? Upper and Lower A arm and shock support are still intact. Wheel, brake assy are basically ripped away.

This is a 2006 Z51 vert with 60000 miles.

 

Staying tuned to see how Jim165 makes out on this.
Sorry for your problem.

 

You mention that you noticed a squeak and could not locate it prior to this happening. I have an 08 coupe with F55 only 27k miles and I have noticed a pop from the drivers side when turning onto an incline or decline. After seeing your issue it makes me wonder, but I checked the torque on all the suspension, swapped shocks from side to side (dealer said it was a shock), checked the sway bar links, and everything looks good.

Hope you were able to get things taken care of today!

 

Anyone know where I can get some of the studs mentioned a while back?

 

This isn't a case of the suspension collapsing. I have seen it several times although worse than what is pictured. I believe your wheel bearing hub has separated from the main part of the bearing and the bearing needs replacing. This could have also damaged the knuckle where the brake caliper is fastened, brake line and body work in the wheel well.

This has been known to happen to stock wheel bearings on cars that have seen a lot of track use. It is one of the reasons people buy the SKF Hubs/Bearings as they have a thicker metal where the two parts are welded together.

I am attaching a picture where this happened to a C5 while on track at speed. One reason this may have happened is because the owner used a rear wheel bearing in the front of the car. The two parts are interchangeable from a fit standpoint but not from a capability standpoint. The rear bearing uses the axle to provide stiffness while the front is made different to sustain the extra force due to cornering. When the hub separated (at just a little over 120 mph) from the bearing the wheel, brake assembly, the brake line and part of the knuckle decided to go on a trip of their own and jumped over the guardrail leaving him spinning along the track. Sort of comes under the Crap Happens collection.



You probably don't want a flat bed to get the car as it could cause a lot more damage to the car sliding it up the ramp. You need a wrecker that can lift the front off the ground while containing the wheel so it doesn't do any more damage.

Bill