Possible broken motor mounts

ADBONNER

MEMBER
2004 BUICK RENDEZVOUS
104,700 MILES

The engine in my car has sunken in. Part of the engine can be seen hanging under the car when looking at the car from the side or front. My brother was driving when he heard a loud "pop" then the steering wheel started spinning the car spun and ran up on the neutral ground and he was able to stop. He didn't hit anything. Back in August I had a shift cable and a oil pan replaced at the dealership. In the process of fixing the shift cable they broke my air conditioner but later fixed it. The dealership told me that the two incidents are unrelated. They said that my motor mounts are broken but my car didn't have any of the common signs associated with motor mount problems. Do you have an idea of what could have happened to cause this.

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3 Replies

CADIEMAN

MECHANIC
3,544 POSTS

Check the two front cradle bolts that go to the frame. They may have broken or they may have just loosened and fell out. It's possible when they fixed your air conditioner they loosen these bolts up and never fully re-tighten them. We will need to know what they did to fix the air conditioner to narrow it down.

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Monday, December 17th, 2012 AT 9:32 PM

ADBONNER

MEMBER
2 POSTS

The two front cradle bolts are completely intact but they are not connected to the frame where the holes are. The holes are fine as well. They aren't dented or torn. Do you know what the general procedure is when fixing a Buick rendezvous air conditioner or car air conditioners in general? Is it possible that they could have slightly move the engine to fix the shift cable? As I said my car had no symptoms of motor mount problems, no vibrations or shaking when idle or while driving.

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Tuesday, December 18th, 2012 AT 2:02 AM

ASEMASTER6371

MECHANIC
52,797 POSTS

Good morning,

It is possible that during the repair for an air conditioner compressor, the cradle may have been released to make it easier to access the compressor. That is up to the technician who is working on the car whether to lower the engine for easier access.

If that is the case, they either did not tighten them back up or they did not torque the bolts to the correct torque allowing them to back off and drop the front section down.

As far as the oil pan replacement, the cradle does have to be lowered to allow the oil pan to come down once it is released. They did have involvement with this issue.

I attached the first few steps for you on the oil pan replacement. It indicated removing the frame support from the vehicle.

Of course they will deny liability for this issue.

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