I went to a birthday party; my friend said he was having problems with his car -- a 2002 Chevy Venture, about 78,000 miles. He stopped at a red light, and his driver'* front tire began rubbing against the body. Fortunately, he had AAA and got it towed home.

I jumped under it and noticed that, underneath the boot, the lower control arm had almost completely ripped apart -- it'* barely holding together. I told him he was lucky it didn't give out entirely, or he might not have made it out of that intersection.

There'* a lot of surface rust under there, but everything else seems structurally sound. Despite the ruined control arm, do you think he can just replace it and the gutted tire and have a working car again?

I have more pictures and a video, but it'll have to wait until I get home.

The first two were the best, but these show off some more of the stuff behind that wheel.

Wow, I would want to figure out why it failed. It looks like it hit something.

The only other concern would be other components that may be bent or broken as well. Those would be apparent when you try to get an alignment done.

Wow, that is nasty and should not of happened, even if something was hit. How does the other side look? I suspect a manufacturing quality issue at the foundation of this situation.

I didn't look at the other side. The pavement was a million degrees, and I left my [beverage] in the house.

Regardless, I suggested that he replace the control arms in pairs (or both pairs); I'm told you don't need to, but given that he had a catastrophic failure, I "wouldn't trust [the van] farther than I could throw it."

to me it looks rust rotted and thin, i would go over the whole thing see if anything else important is soft looking