For the last few years my TGP has always made "creak" or "knock" noise when accelerating or letting off the gas, like the motor was moving around ever so slightly.  Tonight I found the source of the noise!  I was backing down a driveway and suddenly I lost ALL steering.  The steering wheel completely free-wheeled.  I shut the car off, (THANKFULLY had only drove a few FEET!) and what I found next left me speechless!!







It's like the motor ripped the rear engine cradle mounts right out!!  I can't f**king believe it!  I hope my car isn't junk now!

I also have a picture of how the motor is sitting right now: http://i2.tinypic.com/6hhllyv.jpg


A few years ago I asked the GM Dealer about the cradle bolt recall and from what I remember, they said it had already been performed.  Obviously here in Wisconsin they salt the shit out of the roads every winter....  but man what a disaster!  Does anyone know if the recall actually FIXES the problem or just gives you another "10 years" before this dangerous situation occurs?

Imagine if I had been driving when this happened!!

Tomorrow I'm getting it towed to the GM dealer.  I have family managing the service department so hopefully I can get this taken care of.  What probably all broke?  Wouldn't you think this would create a giant "pry-bar effect" and destroy the front of the frame as well?

Def sucks to be you!  :icon_exclaim:
What I would do is:
Replace the complete cradle with a non-fubared unit (paint it too!)
Replace ALL the bushing for everything while it is down (poly it up)
Replace the rack since it probably yanked the gear guts out of its position.
If you inspect other ready to fail parts that may need attention/replacement, do so while it's all out of the way!

Then align the sob.


Done!  Sounds like cake walk dont it?  hahah   :icon_razz:

dude, I feel your pain, I had that happen to me on my old 91 Grand Prix... it sucks.. I couldn't figure out the noise for the life of me... then one day I was takin off from a stop light, and bang, lost all steering and luckily I was turned just enough to the right that I coasted right off the shoulder.... Aparently it was so bad under there it couldn't be fixed with 142k miles on the body, which sucked cuz my motor only had about 20k since the rebuild..... Good luck, I hope you can fix it...

Speaking of which, I should probably get mine checked out at  a dealer, everything under there looks good, but can never be too safe.

Somewhere on this or w-body forum is a link to the cradle bolt recall information. I do not have it handy so do some searching. If you are smart about your wording to the dealer, you may be able to force them to replace the effected parts both at the cradle and whatever may have ripped free from it dropping.

It is a bummer...but you guys with salt belt cars really need to keep an eye on the cradle.

If you do not believe in a higher power you may want to look towards the sky anyway and say, "THANK YOU!" Imagine if this happened at 60MPH driving down the road! :icon_eek:

Yeah, Kenny, I posted that same thing on w-body in his thread.  My stats professor had the cradle drop out of his Merc Marquis last spring, as he was driving to the store for errands before his soon was to take the car and his friends to the movies.  Returning home the cradle dropped in the front and gouged his driveway about 6 inches into the blacktop.  His mechanic told him how lucky his son was, at 65 mph it is common for them to roll end over end.

His errand was to pick up a six pack of beer.  How many times can you say a 6 pack of beer saved your life?? :laugh:

I tried to get mine replaced under recall about 5 years ago and the dealership would not honor the recall.  It will take some doing to get it done, best bet is to mention "lawyer" if they will not honor a nation wide safety recall.  They technically should do if free of charge, but you will be lucky if they do pick up the tab.  Good luck man.  Glad that it didn't destroy the car or you or anyone else for that matter. 

Quote from: R Dubya on September 19, 2007, 10:40:06 AM
They technically should do if free of charge, but you will be lucky if they do pick up the tab.  Good luck man.  Glad that it didn't destroy the car or you or anyone else for that matter. 

Ya good luck with that, they will try anything not to do it... If I had known a little bit more about the legalitys involved, I would still have my old Prix, but unfortunatly everything happened like 2 days before I was set to deploy to Pakistan... and I just had to bend over and take it up the you know what...

TookieCat sorry to hear about that!  :icon_frown: I think that's gotta be the biggest nightmare with these cars. That and the crossover. Good luck with the repairs!
What exactly is the proper procedure for having this stuff done. I was on the local dealership's website and entered my VIN and info into their system. Never received a reply. Has anyone ever really gotten a dealership to fix this issue? You would think that they would want the business. Don't they get re-embursed by GM?
I live in NH. They salt up here!!!!!!
Do dealerships intentionally avoids repairs like this.  :icon_mad:

could someone maybe find the recall # on this, I want to bring mine down to the dealership just so I can see how much they try to avoid it and post about my shitty experience...lol

That really sucks it came apart. When we did Jimmys 5sp swap we replaced all the bushings, washers and bolts on his while we had the sub frame out. His had some rust but not near as much as yours. If I remember correct the parts were not that expensive and still good numbers from GM. After seeing this I'm glad he wanted to do that while apart.
Tim

Wow, good thing that happened at low speed. :icon_eek:

For everyone here concerned about replacing the cradle hardware/bushings, all of the part numbers are available in the scans I posted in the "General" section in the stickied "common part numbers" thread" there. I think it's a bit over $100 in parts for all that stuff now. That $100+ would be well spent to prevent the subframe from disconnecting your steering. I ordered a subframe bolt last year or in 2005 and they were a few bucks each back then. The left rear bolt on my '93 Grand Prix somehow backed out/fell out while driving. I installed all new parts in '03 and that one bolt felt out about two years later despite being torqued properly...so I have no clue how it backed completely out. Now I check to make sure they're still tight at every oil change or anytime I'm under the car.

I would think the bolts coming loose is pretty common. Right after Jimmy got his TGP it had a banging noise. He had a dealership guy look at it as soon as Jimmy told him what it was doing he put it up and went straight to the bolts and tightened them. Fixed it right up.
Tim

the bolts usually aren't the problem.. in fact about 90% of the time they won't come out at all. 

There are washers in there that rust out and slip over the head of the bolt.  Unless the bolts break.. either way it's good to get a good idea of their condition every year, especially if she's a winter driver (in the salt belt anyway)

You guys should loc-tite your bolts.

       No Tim, remember the streeters transmission guy and the guys from Tampa did not know what the Torque was on the bolts so they just put them Hand tight, which is not near enough for what they need. The guy in Daytona that knew exactly what the problem was, grabbed his Impact wrench and I literally saw each coner of the sub frame go up 2". So this is for the guys that think they have it tight enough you DON'T. Please get your hands on a impact wrench only and drive those bolts right up there, don't be afraid of busting the bolt like me. Guarantee it'll fix all your problems concerning this issue. This is no :gr_bs:

108 ft-lbs for the bolts. but that obviously wasn't the problem here.