[frank29]

I drove up to Chicago a week or so ago. The morning after arriving I was walking across a parking lot towards my car and noticed the passenger side rocker panel was gone.

I think that is kind of wierd: the drive to Chicago was very uneventfull...no evasive manueveors, running over curbs, driving through ditches or anything. And I know the panel was in place before leaving my home because I washed the car.

When I got home, I went to the local dealership. The service manager took care of me (he ordered the part) with no problem. In less than a year, I will be past 36K miles and a future occurence will be on my wallet.

I think there is two possible explantations. One, the design is so weak the panel just fell of at 90 mph. Or, two, I compromised the panel by doing something to damage it sometime in the past and it was barely hanging on and at high speeds it just couldn't take it.