So last week I'm driving down a well-traveled highway in a 2010 Honda Odyssey. Borrowed, not my car.
As I pulled onto an exit ramp that connects the highway with another route, there was suddenly a loud, jarring impact as though I had run over something big. But I hadn't - I had glanced down and ahead at the road surface right before the impact happened, and the lane was clear of obstacles, pot holes, etc. I did notice a strip of pavement running across the lane from one side to the other, that was a different color and texture than the rest of the surface, but it was smooth pavement, no holes or gaps.
After the impact, the car tried to skitter sideways, and I had to really steer to keep it in the lane. When it was straightened out I looked in the rearview, and the cars behind me were all moving sedately along - no zigzagging as would happen if they were trying to avoid something in the road, no hard steering as though they'd experienced the kind of impact I had.
I was about a mile and a half from home at this point. For the rest of the trip it seemed that the Odyssey was steering harder and riding rougher than normal, but this was my first time driving it (although I've been a passenger in it a lot of times), and I convinced myself that I was imagining the problems because I was a little shaken up.
But the next time I drove it, it rattled and shook over every little bump, and on the highway at higher speed it rocked, wallowed, and pulled to the side so much that I could barely keep it in a lane. I got off at the first exit and drove home slowly on surface roads.
What I'd like to know is, what caused that "impact" on the exit ramp? I'm virtually positive I didn't hit or run over anything. If I'd been driving on an open road, I would suspect I'd hit an animal that was trying to get across and ran under my tires. But this was on an exit ramp that's part of a huge stack of overpasses, underpasses, and entrance and exit ramp interchanges (known locally as the Mixmaster), and an animal would have had to do some very fancy stepping across four or five lanes of busy highway traffic from either side even to get to it. I've been on that ramp thousands of times, and never seen an animal there, or one that had been hit.
Also, if I'd hit an animal hard enough to cause the kind of impact I experienced, I don't think it would have gone anywhere afterward - it would have been lying in the road, and cars behind me would have been steering to avoid it, or slowing down to rubberneck - which they weren't.
So what created that impact? I know almost nothing about the inner working of cars, but I'm wondering if it could be that something let go in the Odyssey's suspension, dropping part of the vehicle's weight onto the surviving support members.
I'd like to get some idea of the possibilities of what went wrong, before I bring it to the garage. If anyone has had a similar driving experience, or any ideas about what could cause a vehicle to do that, I'll be grateful to hear them!
Thanks!
Carol
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I apologize that my post must have made me sound way, way more competent and ready-for-anything than I actually am. 
