After exiting the highway onto a side road, the vehicle began to shake violently (like we were on a very bumpy road). I pulled into a parking lot thinking we had a flat tire. Then the vehicle suddenly came to a stop and would not move forward and would not move backwards. There was no flat tire, but I noticed that the front left tire was turned inward in the direction that the steering wheel was turned, but the front right tire was also turned inward at a much greater angle. At first glance, I could see behind the tire that the tie rod had detached from the front right tire resulting in no steering capabilities for the vehicle. The tie rod has a large bolt that attaches it to the tire, and the bolt was missing. Had this happened on the highway just a few minutes earlier, the resulting accident could have been catastrophic. I paid to have the car towed to the dealership and when the tow truck driver arrived he took one look at the vehicle and said "this should have never happened". The dealership could not explain how the tie rod lost the bolt and there was no visible damage to the tie rod. My concern is that had this happened at 60mph, the car could have flipped or the car would have been abruptly turned into the median wall at 60mph. Tried to upload images, but could not upload.
NHTSA ODI 11506279