Good Morning!

I purchased a leveling kit from Autospring Corp. that included front 2.5" Spacers and a rear Add-A-Leaf for my 2013 FX4 4x4 Supercrew.

About 4 weeks ago, I took the truck to a shop to have it installed. The shop specializes in trucks and wheel/spring work and had installed my Bilstein Leveling Shocks in my 2006 F150 years ago. They have also done several alignments for me on various vehicles that I have owned and have always done a great job.

During the installation, they called me and told me that they would like to install what they called a "Cam kit" in the front, as it would make it easier for them to do the front end alignment and would also make the alignment more precise.

Nearly $800 later (for the install of the leveling kit, alignment, "Cam kit" and mounting of 4 tires.

Fast forward about a week, I begin hearing a "clanking" noise when I turn or step on the brake. A couple of days later, the wheel is ****ed about a half-turn to the right while going straight, and the banging and clanking noises are even worse! I work full-time so I was able to get a relative to take the truck back to the shop to have it looked at. The owner of the shop calls me on the phone and tells me that the bolt in the lower control arm had loosened and nearly fell off the truck.

I've now had the truck back for a little over a week, and wouldn't you know that two days ago the clanking and banging started all over again.

Does anybody know what might be causing this? I have a bad feeling that they stripped the bolt on the control arm while they were working on it (or worse the threads on the arm itself) but before I call them back and accuse them of anything I wanted to get some other opinions on the matter. Also, has anyone ever dealt with this "cam kit" and could that be the cause of any issues?


Thanks!

 

The cam kit just allows them to do an alignment easier, but isn't truly required. The cam kit shouldn't have any effect on the lower control arm since normally they're installed on the upper controls arms.

Sidenote, $800 seems somewhat high for what you had done by about $100-150 worst case with them charging full hours for labor and charging to install the cam kit as well.

It's possibly the either overtorqued the lower control arm bolt or stripped it out or just aren't torquing it enough and it's working itself loose. Either way, I'd run it by a second shop and get another opinion on what the actual cause is. Lower control arm bolts working free aren't too common.

 

Thanks for the help so far. I was also reading about people who have had issues with leveling kits saying that the wrong spacers were installed (Left spacer on the right side, or spacers being installed upside down, etc). Any chance that could be the culprit?

 

Could be possible, but affecting a lower control arm bolt just doesn't seem that probable.

 

I agree. Sounds like the lower bolt is either stripped or it hasn't been torqued to spec.