Rego Inspection Failed, Friday Adventures Continue

Well, as expected, the rego inspection yesterday was failed. But it was failed more severely than expected with unexpected occurrences on the way.

Half way to the rego inspection centre, my steering suddenly felt crazy heavy esp. when attempting to turn right. But I continued on to the inspection hoping it was nothing they would notice. I was wrong.

It seems that the front right hand ball joint popped out.



In the highlighted area above, there is a round 'thing' pushed through the bar coming across from the right of the picture. That bit which is pushed through is the ball joint, and normally it does not protrude *at all*.

As a result of that problem, they deemed the vehicle unsafe to drive and even suggested I get a tow truck to get it home. I didn't really want to fork out the cost etc. for that, so I limped it back home. Following that I (with the help of Erg and Scotty) limped it down to a local generic suspension shop to get it fixed.

The current plan is that they wont look at it until Monday. But the thing was that I still had the daily permit, so wanted to get it down there before that ran out. Plus, with the new rating I can now only get 2 hourly permits (rather than the previous dailies), but if I go back and show them that the ball joint is fixed they will allow me to get weeklies.

So hopefully I can get that fixed Monday and then take it back out to the inspection centre a day or so after that and get a weekly. After that I can take it to another mechanic and get all the other items sorted.

Probably the next most major item is the exhaust was coming out at 101db, where apparently I'm only allowed 90db. So I need to get something done with the exhaust. :(

Anyways, here's the full results (note the circled R next to the ball joint issue - that means restricted and hence the 2 hour permit restriction):



It's funny, this was the second Friday I have driven the car, and the second Friday where things seemed to have gone bang with the car. Maybe Friday is not a good day to drive it. ;)

Thanks go to Erg for sorting out getting the car to suspension shop, and thanks to Scotty for driving us back from the suspension shop. Cheers guys.

P.S. I also found the inspection guys to be really friendly and helpful. Made my first pit inspection much less daunting. :)