Alright, so this past fall I dropped my car 2.5", and then I brought it to a local Firestone for 4 new tires and an alignment... After they were through with it, not only did they tear my CV boot, but they also managed to break my right front axle, which they reluctantly replaced...

Well, prior to my axle breaking there didn't seem to be any problems with the cars handling, then when they took it back to replace the axle and boot, all of a sudden it started feeling kind of weird, which they refuse to fix...

On dry pavement the car seems to handle fine, but up here in North Dakota, on the snow and ice the back end fish-tails when I'm trying to drive straight, there's also a sever knocking coming from the back of the car when I hit even small bumps...

I looked at the trailing arm bushings and I'm going to replace those, but would they affect the toe of the rear tires enough to make it sway?

What do you think the problem is, like the swaying and the knocking?

 

I doubt that Firestone "broke" your axle while replacing tires and aligning the wheels. How do you break an axle that you don't even touch to perform either of those tasks? And I'm pretty sure they didn't tear the CV boot on purpose, and I can certainly say that they shouldn't have paid to replace it - you should have. Why? Because original CV boots on a 1996 car can easily be so dry rotted and cracked that they will split with the slightest provocation. How do you know that the boot wasn't already split before you took the car to the shop?

You sound like a customer that I'd never want to deal with, because your attitude suggests that you don't trust shops that work on cars for a living, yet you obviously are no expert on vehicular mechanics yourself. That is not a winning combination.

In addition, why go to Firestone at all? You obviously don't trust them, so why wouldn't you go to an Acura dealer that specializes in these vehicles?

So it "all of a sudden" started having problems when they touched it again? That's odd, because I know of no way to screw up an axle replacement that will cause the problem that you're describing. Am I to infer that you believe they somehow caused your trailing arm bushings to break by replacing your axle?

And yes, rotten and broken trailing arm bushings WILL cause a knocking noise from the rear over bumps, and WILL affect both the static and dynamic toe of the rear suspension enough to cause instability in many situations. Did you look over the rest of the suspension as well to make sure all ball joints, bushings, hub bearings, and lug nuts were tight?

And gee, do you think that maybe driving on known slippery surfaces such as snow and ice might have something to do with the car not feeling too sure-footed?

Good luck and have a nice day.

 

First, this is an older account of mine that I had completely forgotten about, but I ran out of posts for the day so I decided to use it just for this special occasion...

Lets pretend I'm stupid and don't know anything about mechanics for a second... Okay?

Now let's take away the fact that I've been racing sprint cars since I was 14... and the fact that I have been building chassis and engines since I was 9...

Now, lets pretend I don't know what an Integra axle looks like, because obviously you aren't looking at what I actually needed to know...

Integra front axles have TWO cogs on them on the hub side... both go into the hub and are "pinned" in... when a break occurs between the two cogs it generally means that the "pin" wasn't in place and/or the axle wasn't pushed in far enough...

Now... let's put this into view: Firestone was the only one, besides me, in the last 13,000 miles to touch my car and do anything that involved axles, in fact, I hadn't even touched the axles because I was going to leave that up to the "professionals".

So what were seeing here is, they didn't put my axle all the way in, it broke between the two cogs that are both supposed to be in the hub. Explain to me how I, without even touching the axle, could have broken it... and also explain to me how they couldn't have when they were the one that were supposed to be replacing the CV boot?

Here's what happened, in case it needs to be spelled out even further: My car went in for a routine alignment, not only did they ignore the fact that I had front camber adjustment and bend my a-arms, but they were also supposed to replace the CV boot because it had a small tear on it.

In the mean time, they "aligned" my wheels which showed in all the print-outs that nothing had aligned properly (caster, camber, toe, so-on). So they released the car to me and it made it out of their parking lot before losing all power at the wheels...

I pushed it back to their shop where they lifted it up and begun to spin the wheel to see what was wrong, under the new CV boot I could see something moving, so I pointed it out... Under it was my axle, broken off between the two cogs.

Then, they tried to pull the same thing you just pulled, accusing me of not knowing anything and saying that clutch-pops had broken it when I finally turned it around and gave them this exact same explanation of how the Integra axle has two cogs that sit inside the hub and they hadn't put it all the way back in. Then they confessed that it had happened before on cars similar to mine and that they would replace it...

But that explanation had nothing to do with my questions, so you just wasted my time and everyone elses, so I suggest, from now on, you read through thoroughly what the poster had actually posted, then don't jump on your first conclusion...

Oh yeah, and don't challenge my intelligence in the fields of chassis/engine/mechanics, because I don't care what kind of degree you may have, book smart will never compare to actually learning by getting your hands dirty.

Thank you have a nice day.

 

Also, what I'm implying is: When they took my car back to replace the axle, could they have tweaked any of my camber/toe settings because they were mad about me being right? That's why I included the part about having to bring it back and then all of a sudden the handling was just crappy...

I'm also sorry that I got pretty defensive, but I just don't take kindly to people, regardless of rank or occupation, who think I'm wrong when the facts are in front of me... trust me, I know when I'm wrong.

 

Also, I noticed yourname has "250R" in it, doyou race quads by any chance?

I raced quads for from 9 to 14 years old, had a full-mod 300EX in the 200/350 A and 200/350 Youth class... my brother raced a 250R for a few years before he switched to a Predator with the KTM500 engine for Open A...