This all happened awhile ago. Drove into a small pit...er, pothole, then the somewhat larger one after it. Montreal has it's highs and lows. The lows, in my experience, include potholes that rival the Dead Sea's claim to "lowest point on earth".

Initial results - Tons of vibration in the steering wheel at highway speeds, but the tire held air and the wheel *looked* fine to the naked eye (no clear deformities). Something was obviously messed up, but I was in another city and had to drive a fair bit on the busted setup.

My front right wheel ended up being fairly out of round, and I got it fixed a few thousand kms later.
After getting the wheel fixed the steering wheel vibrations are mostly gone. If I take my hands off the wheel at highway speeds it will no longer visibly shake like it used to. But I still feel a bit in the 110km/h-120km/h range (65/75mph). It fades out quickly below 100 and above 130. Fixing the wheel narrowed the range and weakened the vibrations, but they're still there.

The question is: what is most likely to bend/break from a standard pothole hit? Can I confirm the broken-ness myself? I have, or have the ability to steal, most of the tools I'd need to pull stuff off the front end, and a Helms for what it's worth, but would it be worth it? I'm no suspension/steering system expert. I look at CV boots to see if they're still at least mostly attached, that's about it

 

check out your tie-rods as well
they are easily bent in a near death pothole experience

 

Have you had it realigned? Sometimes, hitting a pothole can just throw off your alignment without actually breaking anything, so I would have that checked first

 

I would jack the car up take a look to see if your tie rods are bent or if anything seems loose and if not take it in to get it aligned. If there are any problems they will most likely tell you what they are.

I also feel your pain, I just went through almost the same thing. Except I hit a pot hole and didn't notice anything wrong, then a few days later my tire was low on air. So I filled it with plans to take it in under warranty this past monday and on Sunday while driving on the freeway I began to hear a loud noise that sounded like metal on metal in the suspension. Tried getting off the freeway and as I am on the off ramp the tire blows. Turns out that pot hole started a crack on the inner bead seat and slowly worked it's way into the center of the wheel. No one will repair it because of where the crack originates and my wheels are discontinued, had to spend a grand on new wheels and one new tire.

 

So the car's alignment being thrown off could cause vibrations? Interesting...but I guess I ususally don't tool around in an out-of-alignment car.

Thanks for everyone's advice. I'll give the car a good lookover when I can get it up on jacks again. (I'm back in the accursed city for the moment )

 

Off topic, but did you report it to the city or DOT. Sometimes they replace that sort of thing, because its cheaper to do that then fight lawsuits.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Featherfire &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">My front right wheel ended up being fairly out of round, and I got it fixed a few thousand kms later.</TD></TR></TABLE>


Just so I'm not confused, what did you have done?
New rim and new tire?

 

hope I can help you as I too went through the same thing. Mine lost air after a big pot hole. I don't think the rim was bent but I drove it like that for sometime. The tires eventually wore uneven. The culprit for me was a busted CV joint, I replaced the CV axle not hard and costed me only $50 and sometime. The vibrations are only minor now compared to what it used to be (now probably just uneven tire wear).

 

How is your alligentment. I remember when I curbed my wheel my alignment was totally messed up, and my suspesion on that side was totally messed up. (This was the front driverside tire) I ended up needing a bunch of stuff, new control arms, tie rods, shock strut, basically the whole assembly. Total cost to fix was about 450 or so. Take it to a mechanic someone who is trained to know what to look for who can identify broken parts. Then find someone parting out lude, get the parts and take it back to him.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by M@ &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Off topic, but did you report it to the city or DOT. Sometimes they replace that sort of thing, because its cheaper to do that then fight lawsuits.</TD></TR></TABLE>

No, I probably should have - but this is Quebec. I'd expect them to mail a pipe bomb with the check


@Incognito
I ended up going to a friend's shop who took my wheels off for free and checked their balances. On the balance machine you could see that the right front wheel wobbled - it was actually bent. I then took it to a specialty shop that straightens wheels. I paid too much considering these are just blades on my car, but he did it in 2 hours flat (I needed to get back to Montreal soon)
So refurbished rim, same old tire. (Swapping the front/rear right side tires results in unchanged vibrations, so I do think the wheel is fine)

It does look like it's worth doing an alignment, I'll do that over the weekend and see what the results are.

 

Hmm......I know it's a pain dealing with crap like this. Since you drove it for awhile with it fubar, I would have guessed that your tire was wore funny, but if you said it made no difference switching front/back, then I hope you had lucked out on that. I don't really trust wheels once they're messed up, but I've never had one fixed either so I really don't know.

As previously mentioned, probably wouldn't hurt to take a look at the alignment, tie-rods, and wheel bearing. With that wheel+tire jacked up off the ground, shake it side-side and top-bottom - if there's a lot of play that could be your issue.

Probably the easiest, not the cheapest though, would be to take it to an tire/alignment shop and have them take a look-see.

 

hey, i ended up doing the same thing not so long ago on a now cursed highway and bent a nice pair or rims and recieved some not so hot damage underneath. i actually damaged the stabilizer linkage which was causing some steering problems, some other stuff that wasn't as bad too, but chances are it's something along the lines like that or something having to do with your tie rods, i had to spend about $500 to get everything back to normal.....stupid potholes...

 

I took it to a tire shop when I was back home for the weekend. They re-rebalanced all the wheels, and did an alignment. The front-end alignment checked out even before they did it, though. Everything checks out now, in those terms.
The bad news? Same old vibrations! woohoo!

I'll have to get under the car when I'm home again (@school in montreal = no tools). At least the vibrations arn't terrible anymore, but I still worry that they arn't helping the car any