asmallsol

Last night, I was in an empty parking lot, there was a light covering of snow, my windows were on the verge of being fogged up, and I moving semi fast. I thought it would be fun to slide around a little bit. In this parking lot, on the corner of each set of parking lanes, they have these small curbs with rocks. Some had street lights hanging out of them, or trees, So they were highly visible. However, there was this one that had no things protruding from it, and I didn't see it, and I ran right over it. I was moving at a somewhat decent rate, and it was pretty forceful. It was my own damn fault. Most of the impact was at the driver side front wheel.

There is no body damage, however, I think I might have fucked up my suspension. When driving, the car has that steering wheel position like when a tire rod is just installed but not adjusted properly so when going straight, I have to have the wheel pointed like this / insead of like this --. If I point the wheel how it should be going straight, I veir off to the right. Also, driving past 45, I get a vibration in the steeringwheel. I took the wheel off today, and nothing that I could see was highly fubar (if it was a little, I did not notice it). The wheel was actually in good shape (driving on some GSR fat fives for the winter) however, the tire has a buldge the size of a golfball on it. That explains the vibration. So I put my sol wheels one, vibration was gone, but the thing still pulls.

So my question. By hitting this curb, could it just have knocked the wheel out of alignment, and an alignment would cure it, or do you think it may be more serious? I do have a few extra suspension peices from the teg that I am parting out.

Ricey McRicerton

Try and get it aligned. That MAY fix it, but definately won't if you bent something in there.

asmallsol

ha, the people at firestone are going to love me. I just had used my lifetime alignment about a week ago.

Ricey McRicerton

Hell yeah. I keep waiting until Sears has one of those offers agian.

racerx707

its definetely out of alignment so see if they can align it and if they cant then your going to be replacing some suspension parts.

asmallsol

What should I be looking for when it comes to damaged suspension?

mysi92

The golf ball size protrusion on your tire is what they call an impact break. You could have your car aligned again the may be able to bring everything back into spec but you did bend your arms upper,lower, and tierod ends inner and outer, not neccesarily everything but mostly your rod end and possibly an upper arm. We used to bend our upper arms to get more camber in the front of our itrs. check your bushings in your arms for tears or forced adhesion failures. P.S. get that front tire replaced along with the corresponding tire on the other side.

deepnite

ive taken my car to get alignment s many a times..i hit a monster pot hole and bent a tie rod..

if ur not going to do the work urself id suggest that u let Sear s do the work..

while Sears does the alignment they ll also inspect all the suspension and see if anything is mess d up..suspension s delicate..if anything is wrong an alignment will bring it out

im only saying let sears do the work cuz of their shop rates..the dealer want d to charge $400 vs. $180 ...luckily i had a extend d warranty and it all cost me was a $50 deductable

word of caution..never tell the dealer u did something dumb if the car is under some kinda warranty..say u hit some kind of roadhazard instead of curbing it while trying to drift

MrIllegalX

Might have bent your frame too. If that's the case, get it pulled, or sell the bitch.

asmallsol

here is a little update. Since the front tire had that buldge, plus was out of ballance, I ended up putting my stock sol wheels back on the front. They are 14, the GSR fat fives on the rear are 15's. Well take it to firestone, they put it on the rack, it was all screwed up. Finally after a little work, they got the toe back to spec. now, for some reason, the right has about -1.1 degrees of camber, (before it was in spec at -1.3 now it is -2.4) Caster is now better (guess it bent it back to where it should be)

However, here is my Front Camber caster and toe, before and after....

before incident after incident after alignment

Cross camber .1 .9 .8
Cross caster .3 .5 .5
Cross SAI .4 -.4 -.4
Total Toe .01 -.27 .03


The camber there is a big change, but the caster and toe are good.


As for the rest of the updates, it still pulls slightly to the right. Here is the good part that I am thinking. Before I put my rota's on, I had the stock sol wheels. When I had them, my car always pulled to the right, even after alignments. When I put my rota's on, I could let go of the steering wheel, and the car would go straight. On my sol wheels, they have a crappy unidirectional tire so I am still putting them on the same side as I did before all this crap. So what I am thinking, I will throw on my rota wheels on, see how it drives then, and If it is good, Then I will just replace my fat five tires, then put those on for the winter.

Also, To find out, the rear driverside tire also had a buldge in it, so I will just replace those two, then put the replacements on the front, the old tires on the back.