Check your bolts, avoid crashing

Thought I’d share a recent experience of mine, as it might help save a life someday :laughing:

To give some backstory, I had been feeling my vehicle act a lot differently when driving over a bump. It felt “jumpy” and squiggled/shifted back and forth after going over. It was noticeable on small bumps… and was getting scary on larger ones.

In my own defense, I first thought it was my new-ish lift kit/suspension finally breaking in and becoming less stiff. The front control arms I installed were also recalled a few months back, so I figured I might be feeling the effects of why they were recalled. Well both those theories were wrong.

After waiting probably a bit too long, I was finally able to find the time to pull it into the garage and diagnose. Everything with the front wheels seemed hunky dory, but after looking at the left rear assembly…

Left:

And for comparison, the perfectly fine Right:

So every time I was going over a bump and felt the shifting… I was feeling that bolt slowly working its way out of the lower control arm. Somehow the nut came off and somehow the bolt didn’t fall out. :face_with_peeking_eye:

Well after reinserting the bolt with a new nut, all issues with going over bumps were gone. My biggest takeaway: if your vehicle feels different, there’s something different with it. Very glad I caught it before the bolt fell out!