Broken Strut--Possible Cause??

[BrotherShoe]

I could use some help figuring out how this happened. I hit a minor pothole on I-10 in Baton Rouge. I was startled, but not jerked from my lane at all. The pothole created a small sidewall bulge on the passenger front tire. Being the middle of the night, I slowly limped to New Orleans. The next morning I took the car to a NOLA Ford dealer (the area chain and local tire shops were too busy to help me same-day) to replace the tire. The car ('00 SVT 'Tour) drove into the shop fine. Once the tire was replaced I got in the car to leave and felt the suspension collapse. Not wanting to hire the Ford dealer again, I (VERY slowly) took the car next door to a Goodyear shop. They saw the problem at once--my Bilstein strut broken completely in half--on the driver's side!

Goodyear attributed the failure to the pothole, but also said that they had never seen this happen--not even on an off-road truck. Any thoughts? Is there any way the cause of failure can be determined? (No, I don't have any friends in the FAA.) The strut is about 5 or 6 years old, with zero off-road use and no other potholes or accidents.

BTW, I purchased these from BAT. They were still performing well (and I really enjoyed them) until this:

 

[jrichardson]

the break appears to be right where the top of the knuckle should be so maybe the strut got tweaked when you hit the pot hole and it caused it to sheer right there. this is just my guess at it and i may be completely off.:shrug:

 

[tsSVT]

The top of the knuckle is about 2 1/2" below where it sheered. Good luck with Bilstein. That is the strangest strut failure I've ever seen. Hope it didn't cause too much damage.

 

[DuratecDave]

Crazy for sure. Outside of wrecks, I've never seen this. Did the Ford garage have it up on a lift to change the passenger tire, or did they use a floor jack? Is the inner fender well wavy?

I remember Brother Shoe from the American University email list days.