so after nearly 14 years and now 199,000 miles....my Focus had what I would call its first major failure.....was driving down 10 like a month ago and hit a huge pot hole near the railroad tracks.....the ABS/Traction control lights went on then back off....I was like ugh.....in the time since then the lights got more frequent and the car developed pull to the right....the steering wheel was now off center....I thought maybe a rear shock had blown, or maybe the sway bar broke, etc. Soon enough, the rear tire starting hitting the inner fender and im like, ok, something is f'd up here....so I got the car up on jack stands and crawled under as it wasnt anything super obvious from the outside
turns out a piece of the subframe has cracked where the sway bar mounts
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So I did think about how I only paid 18k for this car 14 years ago...maybe its time to send it to the graveyard....but dammit...its a 5 speed, the motor still doesnt use a drop of oil...generally, everything in the car works great and it still gets 30-35mpg. So I was like, well, let me check car-part.com and see what I can find.....
So I found a junkyard in andover who had nearly the same car....they will unbolt the entire rear subframe/suspension (6 bolts) and sell it to me for $200.
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so fuck it...ill give it a whirl. We'll see how this goes.