I like barging through the front door instead of sneaking in through the backdoor so each to their own. If the design of the part causes its failure in a way it endangers the driver, it means little how the failure was caused, not sure if you follow this part. It may help you to think back why the passenger front air bags were redesigned a few years ago or go back to Pinto fuel tanks. I am not surprised you got nowhere with GM considering your subdued nature you demonstrate here. Personally, I subscribe to rattling the cage approach.
Rear suspension defect?
- Thread starter TrevorR90
- Start date
CF torque tubes and driveshafts are available these days, I am pretty sure a bracket would work as well. I do not race so no immediate need, maybe if this really becomes a more common problem we can figure something out.
ROYMAN
Enthusiast
Is anything going to come from this in terms of a recall or at least some sort of formal recognition of the issue from dodge? I was almost killed when mine out in a tunnel and rebuilding the car was not cheap either...
Steve M
Enthusiast
I see your point, and you can approach this however you wish. I'll be waiting right here to be proven wrong. I'll also be right here to say "I told you so" when nothing comes of it.
I would much prefer if things go your way instead of me telling you "I told you so" LOL. IMO, if there is a way to prevent another Viper owner from getting hurt, it is worth pursuing. Ralph can run but he cannot hide.
TrackAire
Enthusiast
A couple of thoughts here, maybe some attorney types know the answers.
I do not believe that Snake-Oyl is claiming that this bracket will stop the breakage from happening, but that it "might" keep the rear together long enough to get the car safely stopped or back to the pits. If they are claiming a guarantee against breakage then I haven't seen it in their description. Also, to have such a claim would probably mean you'd have to fill out a warranty card, register the product and note the serial number stamped on the bracket. On the other hand, if you have a terrible and tragic accident that involves others having bodily injury or death and you have either a lot of wealth and or assets, a ambulance chaser may look closely at your modded Viper while in the impound yard with these aftermarket brackets on the car and start asking if these are DOT approved, tested, etc and why would you continue to drive a car that you believe has a rear suspension problem and you killed my client??
Just about any car sold in the USA (when bought new) has a clause in the sales contract that claims any "stuff" that goes weird has to go to arbitration before it goes to court and in front of a jury. If there is a major flaw in the car that makes the government get involved, that usually is on a much broader case and usually means either a TSB or recall type of event. You're not going to win against a large car manufacturer if you "think" your car has an issue (whether is does or not)...even the lemon laws are a ***** to make good on and then it's usually just the cost of the vehicle or replacement in a best case scenario. You rarely get anything for your lost time, aggravation, etc.
I'm with Steve M on this one, nobody at Chrysler is going to do or say anything publicly.....they can't. They may be doing some testing, etc to verify if there is or isn't a problem but you can make Ralph sit in a C7 Corvette for a week and his lips will remained sealed. Even if they found out that there is a problem, they would still do nothing until the government made them do a recall, TSB, etc.
IMO, you won't see anything happen until you see at least 50 to 100 Vipers with broken rear parts parked on the side of the freeway and not involved in accidents. (once a Viper is in an accident, they won't blame the part, but the accident for breaking it). Then the next question will be "has anybody ever done any service work to these suspension components on your car?" At that point they will blame whoever replaced your ball joints, new CV's, brake job, etc for causing the damage that led to the breakage months or years later. And finally, since you'll never see 50 to 100 Vipers documented with broken knuckles sitting on the side of the freeway (it would have already happened by now), you'll get the corporate response "too bad you're out of warranty". Time is on their side, not ours.
Best thing to do for everybody's sake is sell your Vipers and buy a new Gen 5 since it has a totally different knuckle......or does it
Cheers,
George
AZTVR
Enthusiast
I definitely agree with Trackaire. My career has gotten me involved with failure analysis experts in the space industry numerous times. I can tell you that you can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars investigating failures, and have great photos from scanning electron microscopes of fracture faces, and talk about grain structure , etc; but, in the end, not know exactly what the cause was. I'm talking about science rather than feelings. In that industry, there is great desire to find root cause, and it still is hit and miss because failures usually are a combination of events that need to happen together.
TrackAire and AZTVR: that actually does not matter all that much. You can ask Audi how this one works and why perception is more important than facts. Keep in mind what happened to Toyota recently, with Toyota putting up quite a fight not to do anything. The nice thing about flag ship cars is that in spite of small numbers, they get noticed. Now, time to go back to rattling the cage.
chorps
Enthusiast
It's all well and good to respond to controversy but to pander to the masses is like having the tail wag the dog. Besides, not knowing what is causing any failures, let alone how it is failing, what kind of fix can they provide if they don't have a clue on why or how the failure occurs?
The part could be fine but the way it is installed or adjusted may contribute to the failure. It could be bad batches coming from the supplier, regardless of design. It could be that the transporter guys are strapping down on or near the part during delivery that is causing the issue. Or roughness by techs during servicing. Not every owner is reporting a failing part, so how do you propose that the company resolve this? Reinforcing the area may lead to other issues over time.
There's a lot of speculation out there at the moment and no concrete answers. A little bit of patience goes a long way. If you're really paranoid, stop driving the vehicle until they come back with some real answers. Or get the snake oyl pieces and have a little more peace of mind.
The part could be fine but the way it is installed or adjusted may contribute to the failure. It could be bad batches coming from the supplier, regardless of design. It could be that the transporter guys are strapping down on or near the part during delivery that is causing the issue. Or roughness by techs during servicing. Not every owner is reporting a failing part, so how do you propose that the company resolve this? Reinforcing the area may lead to other issues over time.
There's a lot of speculation out there at the moment and no concrete answers. A little bit of patience goes a long way. If you're really paranoid, stop driving the vehicle until they come back with some real answers. Or get the snake oyl pieces and have a little more peace of mind.
It actually matters very little why the part fails, what matters is HOW it fails. If part fails in a way that endangers lives of the drivers, the part was not designed correctly and should be redesigned to account for the part's susceptibility to damage. This should be important considering very little has changed on Gen 5.
AZTVR
Enthusiast
I do agree that the issue is not whether there is anything wrong with the car. The issue is to force a company to give in and spend there own money to fix something whther it is defective or not. Its the American way. Someone must pay !! Someone else, that is.
Sometimes that just can't realistically happen though. Some parts are just going to be catastrophic type failures because of the nature of the system. I don't see them doubling up on a linkage like that because of a safety issue, it's not really much different from breaking a front tie rod end aside from the fact that the front alignment might help to offer a little more re-centering ability. Not saying that they can't improve the design, but I don't wonder if there's a common denominator here. I'd wonder if removing the rear alignment link at some point in the system's life might be the issue. Like hitting the side of the knuckle with a hammer to break the taper and micro-cracking the casting. Or maybe just a flaw in the casting to begin with.
steve911
Enthusiast
Actually there is substantial change to the Gen V rear upright.
The placement of, design of, and the shape of the rear Toe link is really different than the Gen 3/4 cars. I had one in my hands a fews days ago to see If I could easily retrofit it onto an early car as I was impressed with its design.
It won't fit though without a complete redesign of the of the rear frame however.
Steve A.
Right, using your logic, we should never get a price break on window regulators because Chrysler is forced to collect less profits on this account.
Interesting. Honestly, besides seeing them reversed, I really could not tell a difference, pictures certainly can be deceiving. Thanks for clarifying this part.
CBR-ACR
Viper Owner
Update: Investigation on the rear suspension knuckle failures closed. It was determined the crash impact caused the damage and not the failure causing any of the accidents.
Article from the Detroit News attached:
Washington —The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Sunday it was closing its investigation into nearly 10,000 Dodge Viper sports cars for complaints of crashes linked to rear suspension problems.
NHTSA said it would not seek a recall after closing its nearly eight-month old investigation into 9,670 2003-2010 Viper opened after it received 8 reports of crashes caused by rear suspension knuckle failure in 2005 and 2006 Dodge Viper vehicles. The investigation covered the Dodge Viper SRT-10 and Dodge Viper Competition Coupe and ACRX race cars. NHTSA decided that the crashes caused the damage to the suspension -- and there was no evidence of problems with the parts.
Chrysler Group LLC told NHTSA in June that its investigation showed no defect and said it did not believe a recall was necessary. NHTSA said it had a total of 10 complaints, including 8 crashes.
Based on its review of physical evidence from field inspections of six of the eight crashed vehicles, Chrysler concluded that collision forces were the cause of rear suspension control knuckle failure — not a defect in the parts. Chrysler's assessment was based on examination of knuckle fracture surfaces, as well as evidence of wheel rim damage that would indicate impact loading of the affected suspension components.
NHTSA obtained a cracked knuckle from a recent crash involving a 2004 Viper, the agency said. NHTSA's Vehicle Research and Testing Center in Ohio submitted the part to a laboratory for the cracked surface and metallurgical analysis, which concluded there was no evidence of problems in the part and that the damage was due to a single event.
Chrysler issued a bulletin to dealers in January 2012 telling them that if the Viper steering knuckle or control arms were damaged in a crash, the bearing and hub should be replaced.
"Analysis of the failure data indicated these are random events and do not show any clear patterns related to vehicle build range, vehicle age or mileage. Examination and testing of failed knuckles have not identified evidence of a manufacturing or design defect in the parts. Accordingly, this investigation is closed," NHTSA said in its report closing its investigation.
Article from the Detroit News attached:
Washington —The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Sunday it was closing its investigation into nearly 10,000 Dodge Viper sports cars for complaints of crashes linked to rear suspension problems.
NHTSA said it would not seek a recall after closing its nearly eight-month old investigation into 9,670 2003-2010 Viper opened after it received 8 reports of crashes caused by rear suspension knuckle failure in 2005 and 2006 Dodge Viper vehicles. The investigation covered the Dodge Viper SRT-10 and Dodge Viper Competition Coupe and ACRX race cars. NHTSA decided that the crashes caused the damage to the suspension -- and there was no evidence of problems with the parts.
Chrysler Group LLC told NHTSA in June that its investigation showed no defect and said it did not believe a recall was necessary. NHTSA said it had a total of 10 complaints, including 8 crashes.
Based on its review of physical evidence from field inspections of six of the eight crashed vehicles, Chrysler concluded that collision forces were the cause of rear suspension control knuckle failure — not a defect in the parts. Chrysler's assessment was based on examination of knuckle fracture surfaces, as well as evidence of wheel rim damage that would indicate impact loading of the affected suspension components.
NHTSA obtained a cracked knuckle from a recent crash involving a 2004 Viper, the agency said. NHTSA's Vehicle Research and Testing Center in Ohio submitted the part to a laboratory for the cracked surface and metallurgical analysis, which concluded there was no evidence of problems in the part and that the damage was due to a single event.
Chrysler issued a bulletin to dealers in January 2012 telling them that if the Viper steering knuckle or control arms were damaged in a crash, the bearing and hub should be replaced.
"Analysis of the failure data indicated these are random events and do not show any clear patterns related to vehicle build range, vehicle age or mileage. Examination and testing of failed knuckles have not identified evidence of a manufacturing or design defect in the parts. Accordingly, this investigation is closed," NHTSA said in its report closing its investigation.
swexlin
Viper Owner
I guess that's that The Government has spoken. Doesn't mean there's not a defect.
AZTVR
Enthusiast
Totally correct. That is what the report concluded. There was no evidence of a defect. I am happy that they ruled as they did based on the scientific evidence. I have participated in failure review boards numerous times in my career and have heard expert testimony in reference to metal fatigue and fractures. The NHTSA and Chrysler results sound very plausible and realistic to me.
Now, if a group of Viper owners wishes to pursue it further, I would suggest that they gather one or 2 hundred undamaged knukles and have them cross sectioned to look for crystaline structures and micro cracks. Perhaps VCA or VOA club members could fund the investigation. Well, come to think of it, I don't want my membership dues to be used for such further investigation any more than I want my taxes to.
True, it would seem examining ones that have already failed is maybe less of an issue then examining ones that haven't failed yet. If there's a problem it's better to know before hand then try to work backwards, but it would involve destructive testing most likely. Still seems like fairly random events though. They span a wide range of vehicles, so it would seem to rule out a "bad batch" so to speak of hubs. I know I've had an "off road occurance" in my car and it's still doing just fine. Checked things out and don't see any cracks after 60k miles.
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