Remember about a month ago, when I was driving my Pao, which I had finally gotten back after more than a year since I smacked it into a full-grown deer, and the control arm just failed, with the press-fit ball joint somehow becoming, well, un-fit. It was an alarming failure, but thankfully happened when I was going slowly, so damage was relatively minimal. Anyway, a new control arm has been fitted, and I have the Pao back! All is looking right in the world once again. Well, for now.
Here was the failed control arm:
Oof.
Despite my anger when it happened, I really can’t blame the mechanic, so I apologize for any misplaced wrath. The culprit was a bad part, and the new one seems to be not just higher quality, but, since these seem to lack any sort of clip or failsafe to keep that ball joint in, I had the mechanic add a series of tack welds around the ball joint, just to be safe:
Here’s hoping I never have to deal with that particular flavor of bullshit again. The Pao and I will be taking a nice road trip together this Thursday night, when I’ll be driving from North Carolina down into Garbage Carolina to be a judge at the 24 Hours of Lemons race at Carolina Motorsports Park in Kershaw, South Carolina. If you’re around, come by and say hello, why not?
Is “Garbage Carolina” too harsh? I’m just playing around, engaging in some honest fun Inter-Carolina rivalry. There’s lovely parts of SC, too. We’re good, right?
Good to see you JDM Pike rolling again, JT! 😎
After 5 years of FIgaro ownership, I am amazed by the build quality of those cars. I have done nothing serious on mine that time, after I welded up some english rust, it had developed in it’s time there.
Even the suspension, I didn’t really like at first, coming from Peugeot and Citroën, is far better (softer) than on any newish VAG product.