What A Ride!!!

Wow. This is why we have regular safety inspections, boys and girls. This is also why taxicabs cost so much to operate.

I bought my Mercury in April of 2007. Not long after I bought it, a crucial piece of the suspension, commonly known as a ball joint, failed, immobilizing it. When this happens, the vehicle basically collapses to the ground on the affected corner and grinds to a halt, if you're lucky enough for this to happen at a low speed. If you aren't so lucky?.... Vehicles have been known to spin wildly out of control and turn over because of this.

As there are four of these in Crown Vics and Marquis', I had all four replaced, at a cost of $900.00. Needless to say, I will never use the shop in question again, since the parts were at over 100% markup.

On to the point. 30 months and 80,000 taxi miles later, the SAME ball joint (interesting, to say the least) failed AGAIN at 50 miles an hour. As I mentioned before this is extremely dangerous.

The car bounced hard off the pavement nine times before it finally settled and began dragging on the pavement, literally dribbling me like a basketball in the driver's seat. My head hit the ceiling at least four times.

Fortunately, I was vacant, having dropped a fare less than two minutes earlier. No other vehicles were within half a mile, and the tire apparently blew out and became trapped under the car, preventing its weight from digging into the pavement too hard. This quite likely saved my life.

Somewhere, someone or something, whichever it may be, still likes me. If this had happened 100 feet down the road, the car would likely have rolled. It's a wonder it did not spin out or otherwise go out of control.

Looks like I bought the van just in time.