[8D]I own a 03 Honda Pilot that was involved in an accident to the front left in November. Caliber Collision of Redlands repaired the vehicle and stated that no frame or undercarriage damage was sustained. I made sure that an alignment was performed before recieving the vehicle back. My 17 year old son drives it to school and neglected to tell me that the steering was getting progressively worse since the accident. Having test driven the car and noticed that the steering had about a 1/4 turn of play in it, I drove it to my mechanic in Garden Grove, CA, about 70 freeway miles away from my house. After his test drive, he put it on the rack and found that the 2 main bolts that hold the 'rack and pinion' steering box in place had backed out and were within a few turns of falling out. According to Chris (aka Truong Ngo), this failure would have resulted in catastrophic steering failure at any speed.

Seeing my life and that of my son's flash before my eyes, I immediately contacted ins. co. to file formal complaint against body repair co. and offered to buy Chris lunch. He accepted offer, fixed bracket to steering box and asked for onion rings with his burger. I am new to the forum and read that no advertising is to be posted. Hope I have not violated this, but when your life is saved from injury or death you want to tell somebody! Lastly, to all forum members, please, for the sake of your life and the life of your family and friends, demand that all bolts and undercarriage brackets are secured to factory specs after any accident no matter how minor. (these particular bolts had paint marks from the factory as they are so critical that during original plant assembly they are marked to make sure that they are not mistakenly tampered with according to Chris)

 

I totally agree, we as aviation mechanic, mark out bolts also on main gears and main components of the aircraft for our inspectors and other mechanics down the line to check this on every inspection/ repair / overhauls. Its an important reason why mechanics do this.