NHTSA Complaint #11547241 — 2020 NISSAN SENTRA

Catastrophic failure today. Car was towed with special tow truck to dealer after hours. Will know more tomorrow. While driving Passenger right front tire: upper tie rod broke, lower control arm broke, trans-axel broke, smoke came out of hood. Right before this happened the car experienced a shimmy in the steering wheel and to keep car driving straight I had hold steering wheel at angle to the right (40mph). Next the anti-lock brakes engaged then disengaged. Four or so miles later I got a dashboard warning that had “malfunction” on almost every system (all amber lights). I pulled over at gas station immediately called dealer and was advised to bring in it ASAP. I put the car in reverse attempted to back out of parking spot, got 4 feet out and a horrible clanking/popping noise happened maybe 3 times and smoke came from engine compartment. I tried to put car back in gear to pull back into parking spot - but car would not move forward or backward. Got out and visual inspection showed front right tire had torn away from car and was hanging and car body was sitting imbedded into tire causing a dent in the panel. First tow truck driver said damage was so bad, they had to call a different kind of tow truck. Car then towed to dealer tonight after hours. Don’t know full extent of damage yet, tow truck driver thought transmission damaged when axel pulled away. What happened preceding this: I had just got off I-95 after a 7 hour drive from Myrtle Beach. Was 2-3 miles off freeway when this happed. Had it happed just a few minutes earlier, it would have happened on freeway at 70mph. There would likely have been multiple fatalities. Dealer replaced both left and right trans axels within last 2 months a week apart (car was making clunking sound). Tie rods inspected (told they were fine). Ten days ago clunking again (sounded like it was coming from engine compartment near center console.) took back to dealer they inspected it, changed oil and could not duplicate noise