Rear End Question
 

Last Saturday I was involved in an accident that has me baffled. This will sound far-fetched but here's the set up. I was driving down the road at about 45-50 in a very gentle left hand curve. I heard a clunk similar to hitting a storm grate and the rear end abruptly came around to the right. Countersteering had no effect and completely lost it, jumped a curb and tore the car all to hell. Pretty sure it will be totalled. The road was wet and I suppose I could have hydroplaned but I really doubt it because the rear end didn't wag and I wasn't driving hard. The rear end just abruptly came around and kept coming. Does anybody have any theories? I had noticed a kind of harmonic recently coming from the rear end, but I could never find anything wrong. This really has me baffled.

Sorry to hear about your shunt. Two possibilities come to mind: first, that you broke the rear diff (either ring or pinion) and the rear locked up. That's not a known problem with the Z33 and I've never heard of it happening. The second is that a rear axle somehow sheared and created a power distortion that threw you off the road. Either way, a close inspection of what's left of the rear end should provide some answers.

Is it Thanksgiving already?!

Sorry for your loss brother.

What's up with that? The guy in the Z just realized he wanted to go to Santa Ana to meet Mr. Wall, not to Riverside.

The other guy was just an idiot who couldn't make it over because he wasn't driving a Z.

To the OP (in semi-seriousness).... left rear hub failure? Lug nuts disengaged? Drive shaft(s) broken? Whatever it is, it sounds like something broke that caused loss of traction on one or the other rear wheel.

To the OP: sorry about your accident, and I'm glad you're ok. I can't add to the previous theories on what may have gone wrong, but as dkmura said, a review of the rear end should help determine what may have happened. If you decide to replace it with a similar Z, maybe this smashed one will become a good parts donor and live on with you that way.

In the rear-end craziness arena, I passed an accident on the highway driving to work on Monday that still has me scratching my head. The car with trouble was a late-model Audi A6, and the problem was that the entire left(driver)-rear corner of the drivetrain/suspension was off the car and next to it on the road. The ENTIRE corner: wheel, hub, brakes, control arms, shock!! The drive axle for that corner was laying separately on the road next to it, as well. Then, there was one other car off on the shoulder with its right-front wheel perpendicular to the car - that unfortunate person must have struck the debris from the Audi. I can't believe the Audi's issue would have stemmed from the factory.

That kind of problem (severe oversteer) is usually traced back to the car's tires.

The prevailing interwebs theory is that the Z was behind the camera car ( + not paying attention), camera car hit the brakes, Z swerved and lost it in hilarious Benny Hill-like fashion.