>>The other day my wife was driving her 2001 Stratus when it began to
>>swerve violently, spun her around and into a fence. Thank God she was
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
>
> And the weather conditions at the time of the swerving were??
Weather was overcast, If I remember it had rained the day before but the
roads were dry and it rained later that day. After looking closer at
scene and damage, I do not believe the knucle broken on the curb. The
rim has deep scratch along the edge almost all he way around. So the rim
had to be in contact with the roadway long enough to scrap almost all
the way around. There is only light scratching on curb. After the curb
the car slid on wet grass and mud into a chainlink fence. The fence was
only slightly pushed in where front made contact. Looks like front hit
first the rear slid around and made contact. Between front and rear
contacts there is a fence post which was not bent, broken or leaning. So
it seems to me that the car had lost most of it's speed at that point.
All that leads me to believe the part was broken before it hit the cub.
BTW the is a slanted curb, much like a driveway. I'm not a accident
reconstructionist (though I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last
night) but it looks like a pretty interesting job.
Finally heard back from Dodge and they said if insurance thought the
part broke first then they would look at it otherwise they were not
interested in looking at it.
cavedweller - 29 Jan 2007 00:57 GMT
> >>The other day my wife was driving her 2001 Stratus when it began to
> >>swerve violently, spun her around and into a fence. Thank God she was
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
> part broke first then they would look at it otherwise they were not
> interested in looking at it.
Sorry, I was leaping to the obvious mid-winter conclusion about ice.
fred - 29 Jan 2007 15:03 GMT
>>>>The other day my wife was driving her 2001 Stratus when it began to
>>>>swerve violently, spun her around and into a fence. Thank God she was
[quoted text clipped - 31 lines]
>
:) Don't ice on the road too often down here is Southeast Louisiana.
Don't remember for sure but prob. uper 30's low 40's.
fred - 12 Feb 2007 15:41 GMT
>>>>> The other day my wife was driving her 2001 Stratus when it began to
>>>>> swerve violently, spun her around and into a fence. Thank God she was
[quoted text clipped - 34 lines]
> :) Don't ice on the road too often down here is Southeast Louisiana.
> Don't remember for sure but prob. uper 30's low 40's.
Just did a search of nhtsa.dot.gov about this car one of the safety
recalls was 00V225002 some of the steering gear boxed had a loose nut
that could cause "vibration to stiff sterring, and in worse case, no
ability to turn left." The vehicle has been repaired (from accident) and
now drives fine. As far as I know they did not inspect or do any work to
steering gear box. Could this problem be intermittent? Site says number
of affected units 2865, how do I know if it is affected? How hard is
this part to get to in order to inspect? Going to find something with
VIN on it and call dodge dealer.