NHTSA Complaint #11438519 — 2010 HYUNDAI ELANTRA TOURING

Traveling 25-30 MPH on a gravel road, car shuddered and seemed to tilt sightly to the left. At the same time a loud grinding noise was heard and steering felt funny. On stopping and exiting the car, I saw the left rear wheel was toed to the left, and leaning so that the top of the tire was extended beyond the fender arch. Looking beneath the car, I could see the left rear control arm had torn loose from it's pivot point near the center of the uni-body, due to corrosion. The wheel hub was attached to the car solely by the torsion bar, brake line, and strut. The car had passed a state safety inspection exactly one year previous, and has approximately 115K miles, primarily in Maine. There was NO warning before the failure, such as sloppy steering or unstable handling. The gravel road where the failure occurred leads to my vacation cabin. To get there and return home I must cross a mountain pass which is steep and winding both ways, with a speed limit of 50MPH. One side has sheer drop offs, and the other has solid rock ledge. If the failure had happened in this 10 mile stretch, the results could very well have been deadly. Someone may have offered to repair the corrosion damage to the uni-body, but I could never feel comfortable driving the car again. There was no damage to anything but the vehicle itself, so no police report was made. The extremely rural area where the failure occurred made it impractical to get the car to a Hyundai dealer. I junked the car with Dubois Towing and Salvage, 438 River Rd, Mexico, Maine, 04257 (207-364-7273).