Follow Up On Rear Axle Failure

The Travelling Dillberries · Guru

RE: Follow Up On Rear Axle Failure

The Belmont Bear · Guru

PetenSue wrote:
Sorry but I agree with blaze. Even from reading the original post weeks ago. Never ever seen a blown tyre cause suspension failure. The op said he had completed a trip through western nsw, most probably where the ubolts parted company. You were lucky to get home from that trip Im guessing. We have a very respected brand of off road caravan but after every trip we do I get the creeper and check EVERYTHING underneath. Sorry to say but maybe this damage could have been prevented by a little preventive maintenance. Regards Pete

Pete you make a couple of incorrect assumptions i.e. on the way home from the interstate trip we spent the last couple of days in a CP in Mudgee where we were parked on a concrete slab. I decided to take the oportunity to get under the van and check everything out, I saw a bit of surface rust on parts of the chasis (as I wrote about in a previous post) so I went over to the local green shed and bought a wire brush and a can of spray cold galvanising paint. I spent a couple of hours with the brush, cleaned off some of surface rust on the chasis, touched up the paintwork and inspected all of the components including the tension of the fasteners. Having been an ex maintenance fitter for the first half of my working life I think that I retained at least enough of my trade skills to have seen any obvious problem with the bolts if there had been one. On inspection there were no signs of corrosion on those ubolts and they were definately tight, I didn't actually have a tension wrench so I couldn't tell you if they had been overtightened, if there was a crack somewhere it wasnt visible to me. During the second half of my working life I was trained as a L3 investigator and I spent a fair bit of my time carrying out root cause analysis on incidents and accidents in heavy industry. Something I learnt from that experience was never to assume that a similar events will always lead to the same outcome we used to call that "having all your ducks line up". Sorry to say but a little preventive maintenance did not stop this from happening unless you meant that I should have replaced all of the ubolts as a precaution on a van that had been serviced prior to the trip, had probably only done a total of 20,000 kms and had never ventured off the black top. I'm a little confused Pete because if as you say the ubolts probably parted company in western NSW then we would have been parked on the side off the road out there as there would have been nothing holding the axle to the springs confuse .

TD we also paid for the NRMA premium roadside assist for both the car and the van, other than the 4 hour wait on the side of the road for the tow truck I have no complaints about that.

Cheers

BB

Craig1 · Guru

G'day BB, if you had worded your claim to read that "my caravan damage was initiated by, possibly an unknown object laying on the road surface" which either broke the u bolts or r..ted the tyre, wonder how this would be viewed by self insure company? . If you ever tip off a can of paint from a ladder onto floor, it is always caused by the breeze coming through an opened window.

The Belmont Bear · Guru

Craig1 wrote:
G'day BB, if you had worded your claim to read that "my caravan damage was initiated by, possibly an unknown object laying on the road surface" which either broke the u bolts or r..ted the tyre, wonder how this would be viewed by self insure company? . If you ever tip off a can of paint from a ladder onto floor, it is always caused by the breeze coming through an opened window.

Craig I think that's probably true if I had reported it that way then at least I could have argued that the mechanical failure was a contributing factor and not the root cause. Unfortunately like a lot of people I am guilty of just glancing through documents like product disclosure statements, credit card conditions etc. I was under the impression that as I hadn't contributed to the event by being overloaded or under the influence etc. I would be covered. As Cupie found out when he questioned NRMA they like to dance around what your caravan insurance actually covers you for especially with things like blowouts, losing a wheel etc. A costly lesson has been learnt in future I will be reading every line of the PDS and if necessary asking them for clarification before I pay out any more hard earned cash for an expensive insurance policy.

Cheers

BB

PetenSue · Veteran Member

The point I was trying to make was you had been out on pretty ordinary western roads then it all goes pear shaped a few kays from home while driving on a freeway. My guess is whatever went wrong would have started on the rough roads. And I still believe that. In my industry the words preventative maintenance have a close to biblical meaning. No one wants breakdowns on the job. I know that towing my caravan is not industry related but I still dont want to be stranded beside the road, thats why I am nearly OCD in my vehicle and caravan maintenance. Sorry if you took what I said the wrong way, but thats what I was trying to get across. Regards Pete

Cupie · Guru

At last a response from NRMA about coverage in the case of damage following a 'blow out'

Thank you for your inquiry regarding caravan insurance, in regards to your questions we would cover you in the situation for damages however if the cause of the blowout is due to wear and tear we wouldnt cover it in this situation. At the time of the claim the assessor will assess the situation and would advise if the cause was due to an incident or due to wear and tear.

I hope this helps with answering your question

Kind Regards,

Adam
Telephone Buisness Consultant

LIFESTYLE & gROWTH PRODUCTS
IAG PERSONAL INSURANCE

Phone. 132 132

25 Smith Street, Parramatta NSW 2150

www.iag.com.au

We help make your world a safer place.

The Belmont Bear · Guru

Pete I didn't take offence at what you wrote I just pointed out that I don't know what other preventative maintence I could have done, along with the pre trip servicing, my own visual checks along the way and the one in Mudgee towards the end. I guess I could have carried out some crack testing underneath using Dycheck but I dont think that too many people would actually go to that extreme. I was surprised with the road conditions through western NSW and into South Australia which I thought were quite good in fact they gave me enough confidence to let my wife have her first go at towing on a 100km section between Wicannia and Broken Hill (lucky it didn't fail then). The road that I thought was the probably the worst was the Murray Highway, the surface wasn't too bad but it was fairly undulating and would have given the suspension a bit more of a workout than usual. Sorry that I misunderstood you I thought that you were suggesting that the ubolts may have parted company out west which obviously wasnt possible, I do however agree that this trip may have been a contributing factor in their eventual failure. One thing for sure is that neither I nor the insurance company can be 100% certain of the actual sequence of events that led to the ubolts failing and the axle coming adrift.

The way that the assessment report is written is a bit of a misrepresenation of the facts probably in order to support mechanical failure being the cause. The temporary repairs made to move the van (reattaching the axle) had nothing to do with preventing the assessor from seeing all of the failed components as the bolts were not able to be recovered after the event. The photos that we took of the damage only showed that the bolts were missing not what had actually caused the accident to occur - this was an assumption that he made at the time of his inspection. I actually pointed out to him that his assumption about cause couldn't be made with any certainty as there were other factors involved which I listed. He was so confident that the claim would go through that he told us that we could tell the repairer to go ahead and order the parts.

Cheers

BB

PetenSue · Veteran Member

I can only dream of what you are going through with your insurance company. I am 53 years of age and have had the same insurance company since I was 17. Only one claim. A very ugly multiple fatal accident. The other driver was very drunk at the time. Sorry getting emotional. Finish later. Regards Pete

The Belmont Bear · Guru

Sorry to hear that Pete I cant say that I know how you feel as I have never been involved in a fatal accident but I imagine its something that you would never really get over. Dont worry about what Im going through I accepted their decision, cancelled all of our policies after being with them for over 30 years and I have organised with the repairer to fix it.

Cheers

BB

Warren-Pat_01 · Guru

The only way I could see a blown tyre chopping out a U-bolt is if the axle was a drop axle & the U-bolt being mounted "nuts down" & scraping on the road when the tyre blew. However most axles seem to be straight these days.

bobsa · Senior Member

hindsight is the most clearest but I would have thought, the big pot hole or cattle grid run off the road to miss a Roo that you could not avoid ,
broke the u bolts