Mass Pike Casualty

Only through luck did I not get in an accident on the Pike on my way home from work today.

At roughly 4:35 I was driving about 70 mph in the high speed lane, already in the Framingham area, making good time home. Seemed like it was a nice day outside, the car was even WARM when I got behind the wheel when I left work at 4pm. Flipping stations between Howard 100 and Howard 101.

Next thing I am skidding, fishtailing, swerving.... On the Mass Pike.... In the high speed lane.... At the start of rush hour... Luckily my car must have morphed into stealth mode for a moment as there was no contact made with anyone behind me. I then spent some time broken down while still half in the high speed lane until a Mass. Emergency truck stopped traffic and I was able to get over to the right.

Just last week the Elantra was at Herb Chambers in Auburn where I treated her to a 60,000 mile tune up including a new timing belt and they replaced some tie rods that were loose as well. The Elantra has 130K miles on it and has been an outstanding car overall. It is the first car I ever bought brand new, it has been paid in full for a while and has never "broken down" on me... Until today.

Funny how it has driven so well for so long and less than a week after being put on a lift at Herb Chambers the control arm crumples in on itself. I'll be the first to admit it was rusty and rotting, but it certainly appears that it would have looked this way upon visual inspection last week when they had my car for almost 5 days. Hard to believe their technicians wouldn't have noticed this issue. If I had another $300 hanging around in my pocket I would have asked them why they didn't ask me if I wanted to replace them both at the same time. If the passenger side was that flimsy, isn't the driver's side next to go?

Damn potholes!