Hi, I am the happy owner of a 2009 S40 with 195,000 miles. I had an alignment last week after a "tire incident" (valve stem came out while checking air)
I specifically asked to check the front end carefully as I do a lot of highway driving. Long story short, after the alignment I called to schedule another appointment due to a weird drift in the steering - like hitting a patch of ice. I never made it to the appointment. Had a failure of the control arm, cv axle in the front end. Garage says it is not their fault in any way, they did not miss anything and if the ball joint/control arm was bad there is no way the alignment could have been performed. Is this true? I am at a loss and just happy to be able to type this, was not on the highway at the time of failure.

 

really depends on how the part failed. I've had worn out control arm bushings and it would drive straight for a bit, then suddenly pull to one side (due to the arm sliding within the bushing to put the car out of alignment). This was pretty easy for me to check - put the car on jack stands and I was able to grab the wheel and see the control arm move at the bushing. That's pretty typical of what a shop would do - they'll push and pull the wheels to see if there's any play - if there is, then they won't bother doing the alignment until the suspect part is replaced. If however you had a stress crack in a metal component - it may take the weight of the car to expose the failure so while they did some push/pull, they didn't feel any play in the wheel. Normally the rubber components fail but its possible for something metal to break - ie a mounting bolt, the ball joint can pop out of its socket etc but to your point, a loose ball in socket is something that should be visible during the strong arm test.

What I don't understand is the failure of the control arm and cv axle. Doesn't make sense that both would fail - but it seems plausible that if the control arm totally fails and moves out of place at speed it could destroy the axle.

 

It's possible to align a car with a failed control arm bushing or ball joint. It's pointless because it won't hold the alignment, but its possible.

You'll have a hard time proving they are at fault. I can inspect your car today and you can hit something and break a control arm tomorrow. Doesn't mean I missed anything.