We have all had this happen. We are in the middle of WOT pull and instant disaster! Your dsm explodes! You fly off the road like a comet re entering the earths atmosphere, followed by a cloud of smoke fire sparks whatever trailing behind you. then you have to make that call to your wife, and that's the worst part. I want to hear some good stories from the forum

My ball joint snapped while backing out of my gf's house. Closest call the car it self ever gave me.. Now close calls while racing? That's driver error and I've had a lot of close calls that way haha..

When I first picked up the car it was pouring down raining and it had 1xxx,xxx mile tires on it that have hardened and started to split everywhere. I was turning right on a road to start going up the mountain and floored it being a FWD this was a bad idea as the car didn't turn it just went straight with the tires spinning in the direction it was last facing which was about half way through the turn luckily noone was in the other lane because I would've rammed them. I was also about 1 foot away from a pretty nasty steep ditch.

I was driving in spokane and went to hit the on ramp at night and it was like a super sharp on ramp so i put it in second and thought i was gna rip around the corner. well 16 psi hit and the car went straight into a steep ass ditch. started her up and drove out of the ditch and then car died on the side of the freeway. crankshaft position sensor got mutilated by the balnce belt.

After I finally got about 2k on my engine I decide take a buddy of mine for a ride, he's never been in a dsm before. So we get on the highway and do a couple good pulls. For some reason I tend to drive my car way harder when I've got someone new in urn so I come up on our turn, drop second and pitch my talon around this flat wide right hand turn. At this point I'm pulling 5k rpms full boost and I kid you guys not it exploded into a cloud of smoke. Just poof and it pouring out of every crack between the hood and fenders. Fills up the cab, and my buddy is like oh hell man this is not good!! My steering goes rock hard so I knew right away what it was. I pull over and the upper line on the power steering pump is hanging off and there's power steering fluid alllll over my new build, pouring out on the ground, pooled up on the exhaust manifold. Holy crap

Years ago with my 2G, I had just finished getting it car washed at a touchless, drive through car wash. After this, I am on my way home. I still have some water on my car when im about to get home, so I decide to do a few quick pulls down a straight road. Not going crazy fast, just doing 30-80 pulls on a straight road that cuts through a wooded area to get it to air dry, and not annoy the neighbors. This goes smoothly. Quick drive down the road through the woods, then back up the road to pull into my driveway. Im pulling in my driveway slowly about to park it and the car just drops and stops moving. I instantly know what it is. The lower balljoin recall, that was "supposedly" done before. Obviously it wasn't.

Luckily it broke pulling into my driveway and not down the road I was doing 70-80 on, not too far from trees. ahah

-Brian Gleason
www.stmtuned.com

After pulling a hard launch across the intersection to get to a parking lot on the other side , my cv axle popped out from hitting the curb hard, I parked the car, got out... and I was about to go into the store ,but I decided to look under the car just as a precaution [ I mean come on, I heard a loud thunk when the car hit the curb] and I saw [my reaction ]... a puddle of fluid I already kinda knew what had happened in my mind, so I quickly went into my car found a spare t shirt and used it as an oven mit to protect my hand from the hot aluminum trans casing. I shoved the cv axle back into the trans. luckily for me I got it back in before too much fluid was lost, I went into the store and bought some extra fluid and a funnel and topped it off and went home this happed about two weeks ago.

Another story happed on my colt wagon, but this same thing could happen on a dsm too.
so I'm driving home on a back road coasting in 5th gear when all of a sudden I hear a weird humming sound noise THUM THUM THUM THUM! THUM!! THUM!!! Then I heard a loud SNAP!!!! I was like what just happed then I looked at my gauges and the idiot charging light was on, I then had a clue as to what might have happened, I tried to turn the wheel left and right in a straight line while coasting, the steering wheel was hard to turn [car has power steering], at this point the coolant gauge started rising so I turned on my custom [in dash] wired radiator fan switch, pulled over and shut the car off, and got out quickly. I popped the hood and sure enough the main accessory belt was gone, it was what had snapped [it's the same belt that turns the alternator, the water pump, and then [in turn] turns the power steering pulley] I noticed the coolant overflow tank started to make the burping noise, I had my tools with me and a spare main belt in the car, [ I saved the old main belt as a spare just in case something like this were to happen] I had the car back on the road in like 5 minutes.
And as you can imagine I had a long talk with the guy at the auto parts store, where I bought the failed belt from, I got a discount on a much better name brand belt for the inconvenience, and from now on I won't use the house brands for any belts on my/or my friends cars, it's just not worth the price of an overheated engine .

had a similar experience to Brian. I was on my way to work which has twisty back roads came up on a new Shelby mustang and we were messing around. (just for fun my car can't compete) and on the way home that day going 4mph around a turn heading to the twistys and the ball joint broke. Got lucky.

I very stupidly was driving very fast one night in the rain. It was a road I was used to and knew how to take the 2 corners at speeds. Well that night without bothering to look first I just went barreling down the road, won't say exactly what I was doing .

Anyway I didn't realize that the one street light at the first turn was out. This light was crucial for seeing how wide you could pull the turn. Well not having that Light on and being over 100mph I miss judged the corner big time. What happen next was crazy!! So as I was sliding the corner and because I wasn't far enough over my car slammed against the curb hard. This wouldn't have been so bad but somehow my pass rear tire just dug into the back of the curb. And next thing I know my car is spinning out of control. I had lost all brakes and the car was now In a field doing donuts .

It was the craziest few seconds of my life haha. I didn't know what to do I didn't even have the ebrake and had no clue why. I just new somehow I needed to stop and gain back control. Well as the car spins like the 3 times the front end starts digging in. If I wouldn't have cut the steering wheel back the other way and dropped into gear, I'm almost positive the car would have flipped. It was in the air and on its way, thankfully turning and gunning it over came the dig and I even managed to get my car back on the road again and opened my door and flinstone style stopped my car .

Well I thought it was all over as I coasted to a stop and was about to get out and see what happen. When all the sudden my friend sees somthign coming at us fast! It's my passenger rear tire, rim, rotor, caliper, the whole dang spindle, came bouncing right down the road right alone side my car! It was the craziest thing I had ever seen. It wasn't just rolling fast the thing was moving and bouncing high too. Was so nuts and somehow I still was able to drive the car on only 3 wheels. The cars stance is just right that it was able to balance itself and I drove a few blocks to a friends house, with my tire in the trunk and no brakes. The only time it scrapped alittle was when I went in reverse. Man was that the stupidest thing I've ever done, was not a cheap fix either!

That's seriously epic! Pretty good one but I know someone has one better out there

I was taking a right turn doing about 10 mph, car dropped, sliding me off the road almost into a curb, ball joint failed, taking out my quarter panel, and plastics below the drivers door. I just moved here so I had no tools, took it to a automotive shop, they said the balljoint was fine and it was a thread issue, so they re-threaded it, 500$ and weeks later i'm pulling into work on the main road "huge amounts of traffic here" and my car drops again, ball joint total failure, this time it pulled from the cup...
All on turns, glad I wasn't on the freeway!
The sad thing is, the balljoint was brand new from moog.

Generally ball joints fail on tight turns (low speed) due to the torque applied to the joint in that position.