Due to my Subie being out of comission (at least for now:brow: ) I've been driving my dad's crappy Ford Explorer. It's a gas hog and I just all around don't like it. Anyway, I turned a corner off of the freeway offramp this evening, and it made a thug and then it started shaking, and I mean violently. Any cv or tranny problem I've ever had on my Subie was dwarfed by this sucker.

 

So now I'm out of a vehicle until I can figure out what is wrong with

a) a domestic car (not such a big fan)

a Ford (even less than GM)

and

c) a car that I've never looked under before in my life.

 

I'm hoping its an axle problem in the rear, because I can take care of that. All else, I guess I'll have to take it to a mechanic, any recommendations in the Puget Sound area? I've been ripped off by a couple, so I have a bad taste in my mouth, but any thoughts?

what year is the (whak) exploror?

it's not like the 4WD won't come out of 4WD is it? (like a locked diff soob sort of, bucking and hoping?). had that happen to my friends explorer. ended up being the wiring harness under the vehicle. drivers side about midway back. it just hangs there well exposed and the insulation was worn through (on a 5 or so year old vehicle) and shorting out. wouldn't come out of 4WD.

 

ball joint

axle

can probably figure it out by jacking it up and checking it.

 

if yo'ure striking out, check the ujoints on the driveshaft. usually best to drop it, but sometimes you can tell by looking/yanking on it.

Possible u-joint failure. Seen that on exploders before. Check them out.

 

GD

That's what you get for driving a big crappy car!

Try the crushes, they should charge anything, really cheap!

pfew. Thanks for the help guys. I took it over to my friend's hydroulic lift. We lifted it up and looked under there, and the U-joint on the back had broken and was "bound up." 20 minutes and $20 later and we were all fixed up.

 

Let's just hope I don't have to drive this POS for much longer.