Bent Tie Rod - NOT covered under warranty??

[Kdblondie]

2 weeks ago I was parked on a slight ( very slight grade) and had my wheels turned towards the curb. When I left I turned my wheels to wheelsto drive off and heard a bang noise. I drove less than a 1/4 mile and my screen lit up with limited power, no brake stabilaztion, and no brake regenration. Took to to SC and they FINALLY called today to tell me my tie rod is bent and they also recoomend replacing steering rack and have alignament done. They are telling me it's not covered under warranty. They say it's an outside influence. BTW I only commute 4 miles to work and have not hit any potholes!!! Car is a little over a year old and has 13,000 miles on it. I have neved taken it off roading. Has this happened to anyone else?? Does it help to talk to someone higher up? And they are giving me a price of $4,082.00 to repair !!! I personally think this is BS!! Any help or sugguestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

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[Oldsmobile_Mike]

There've been a few posts about tie rods. They're the "weak link" - designed to fail to prevent more serious damage from traveling up the steering assembly. I think someone sourced aftermarket replacements, would have to search the forum but maybe can dig up one of those, put it on yourself, and then just get an alignment done? Assuming there's not more serious damage, of course. Good luck...

 

[Hereforthesnacks]

2 weeks ago I was parked on a slight ( very slight grade) and had my wheels turned towards the curb. When I left I turned my wheels to wheelsto drive off and heard a bang noise. I drove less than a 1/4 mile and my screen lit up with limited power, no brake stabilaztion, and no brake regenration. Took to to SC and they FINALLY called today to tell me my tie rod is bent and they also recoomend replacing steering rack and have alignament done. They are telling me it's not covered under warranty. They say it's an outside influence. BTW I only commute 4 miles to work and have not hit any potholes!!! Car is a little over a year old and has 13,000 miles on it. I have neved taken it off roading. Has this happened to anyone else?? Does it help to talk to someone higher up? And they are giving me a price of $4,082.00 to repair !!! I personally think this is BS!! Any help or sugguestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Don’t want sound like a jerk here, but if you only commute 8 miles a day and the car is a year old, then you have less than 3k miles commuting. What are the other 10k miles? ?

 

[Kdblondie]

Well it’s technically a year and a half. I got it August of 23 and I’ve take it to Tahoe about 8 times and the rest is weekend driving errands, golfing etc.

 

[Polar]

Sounds to me like your tire was wedged hard into the curb. You cranked your wheel without relieving the pressure and friction placed on the tire into the curb from your R1 and popped your tie-rod.

This could have been prevented by backing up off the curb before cranking your wheel away.

 

[DRJ564]

I see both sides. It’s an adventure vehicle but how hard did you crank the wheel? How hard does an adventure vehicle need to be cranked? I personally wouldn’t accept the prognosis.

 

[HaveBlue]

Seems like more than a tie rod if it got errors otherwise I'd just put another tie rod on and get an alignment. The entire subframe has to come apart to replace the steering rack. It's a terrible design for service.

The tie rods break easy on these things.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Sounds to me like your tire was wedged hard into the curb. You cranked your wheel without relieving the pressure and friction placed on the tire into the curb from your R1 and popped your tie-rod.

This could have been prevented by backing up off the curb before cranking your wheel away.

Yup, whether on a rock or a curb, you leveraged the power steering to pull the wheel off from being stuck and bent the tie rod. Pretty common for off-road people to do, but the curb works just as well.

 

[MountainBikeDude]

Replacing the steering rack I feel is excessive. You should be able to just have the tie rod replaced and an alignment done. Both would be your expense to shoulder.

And to be fair, you can break or damage a tie rod doing any number of things, it doesn't need to be off-road, just the right conditions and the tie rod will do it's job, protect the more expensive components.

 

[Mathme]

While I learned to drive (all on vehicles with no power steering) I learned pretty early that when wheels are not moving and attempting to turn, it takes A LOT more effort. These days, power steering masks that additional effort. In this case, pointing downhill also likely added additional weight onto the front wheels.

Breaking a rack in this instance isn't surprising.

 

[Nixapatfan]

Physical damage isn't covered under warranty by any manufacturer but what caused all the other errors?

 

[Kdblondie]

Well good news is that it’s covered by insurance. Rivian said it would be under comprehensive but after talking to adjuster he said it would be collision. I have nationwide through Rivian.
Here is a photo of all the lights, not sure why they all came on for a bent tie rod.

 

[Erik+]

The infamous turtle!

Glad you found a way for the damage to be covered.

 

[PC UT R1S]

I have 20”AT and after a left rear flat tire changed to the compact spare. Immediately upon driving away all the dash lights (including turtle) went on and I was in front drive only. ‘Wouldn’t allow any drive mode changes and multiple messages said to go to SC. After only 5 miles of driving with my extra full size wheel & tire back on everything resolved.
SC said to bring it in anyway just for a safety check. All was fine.

 

[sub]

Well good news is that it’s covered by insurance. Rivian said it would be under comprehensive but after talking to adjuster he said it would be collision.

The not so good news is that your insurance rates will probably go up until the insurance company has recouped the payout twice over.

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