Vehicle lower arm ball joint collapse

i have a bmw in we tested on friday rear offside arm snapped in 2 i think someone has been practiceing his drifting and cocked it up

Too many variables to be able to make an objective assessment. Without knowing in what way the joint has failed, what the vehicle is, mileage since test etc. Has it had a significant impact on the road as with BMW mentioned above, there may have been a fracture at time of test which would not be visible. If you are satisfied that you inspected as per manual and the fact you conducted a 2 man test and neither you nor your assistant found an issue then all uyou can do is wait for an engineers report to determine what failed first and what the knock on effects were unless there has been significant damage as a result of the incident. Components do fail without warning, there's a good example of this in Matters Of Testing Horror stories.

Vehicle has done 400 odd miles since test. And I'm convinced any play would of been noticed. We have offered to replace the joint and as far as I'm aware no other damage. Thanks guys.

Errm what make / model is,just out of interest?

have had same on a Talbot solara(yeah,i know!)2 weeks later b/j popped out,same thing corroded internally,the rust swells the inside of the joint and you wont feel anything.id advised noise/creaking,ministry advise on same(at the time)was p+a but we still ended up fixing it for nuffin to save all the hassle of appeals etc.your pug(+clios and a few others)has a balljoint that is still exerting upwards force into the hub even with susp hanging,its why you lever em apart/shake side to side on the deck etc to check for play,if you didn't do that it could quite conceivably be friar tucked and not noticed.good luck either way.

they were a fooking disgrace to the motor trade,water soluble bodies,balljoints that I wouldn't have on a kids pedal car,chocolate cams,pick and mix gear ratios to name but a few faults.good riddance to bad rubbish

We have offered to repair it for free although not to pay for the recovery. Why they didn't recover it to a garage I don't know. It was 34 days ago the original text. It failed on 3 items unrelated to the ball joint then came back 7 days later after repairs had been done. I'm assuming that dvsa would go from the original test.

Logic would indicate it goes from date of initial inspection, test a vehicle 1 day before it's earliest presentation date and fail it, if you retest 7 days later you still don't get the extra days added. I know logic is not something we see a lot of but you never know.

Ok I believed it was 30 but either/or the original test was 34 days ago, well 35 tommorow. I am pleased I asked on here as it seems quite a few of you have had similar mechanical failures which were fine at time of test, I pride myself on being an honest and fairly good tester so as you can imagine something like this does knock your confidence and has you wondering all day if you may have missed it but im sure that at some point it would of been obvious unless there was corrosion within the balljoint boot and then in that case I only work with a torch and not a crystal ball!!. I guess I just wait now and see if I get any contact from either the customer via my manager or dvsa. Thanks guys for the advice and help.