wmartin1

Driving home tonight someone pulled dead over in my lane. I had no choice but to head dive the curve or to let this truck take the side of my car with him. I chose the curb. The loudest bang that you can imagine and when I got out, both front and back wheels were dented......something else got bent because although the car is still driveable (BARELY) the wheel leans inward at the top of wheel and the steering wheel is not exactly horizontal but slightly tilted. Can anyone tell me what I may have bent other than the wheels?

Macster

Ouch! Sorry, but no one can tell you with any confidence what else got bent.

My best advice is to take the car to a dealer and tell the service manager what happened and have the car checked over. The techs should be able to spot what was damaged/bent from a good inspection.

With real good luck nothing beyond the wheels got bent (which will probably have to be replaced -- the techs can advise you) and the alignment just knocked asunder.

With less good luck maybe a replaceable component (or two) got bent and will have to be replaced, along with probably the two wheels then the car treated to an alignment.

The tech wants to ensure -- he will but ask him just to let him know you're interested -- the car's alignment adjustment does not get used up to compensate for damaged/bent components or worse...

With bad luck the tub/chassis might have gotten a bit tweaked. Rare but happens: I had it happen in another car long time ago when on a strange street late at night managed to smack a curbed island (no markings/painted curbs/etc) hard enough to change a car's unadustable camber on one front wheel: The fix involved fitting after market camber/caster adjusters.

In this case the task to put the car right got more involved. The car's running gear gets removed and the car put on a Celette Bench and with the proper jigs/fixtures the tweak pulled out. The jigs/fixtures set the position of the various tub/chassis hardpoints to very tight tolerances so the tech will pull the tweaked/bent chassis/tub back into the same position it was in when it left the factory. The car will be as good as new once this is done.

Then the other damaged items replaced. And the car aligned.

Sincerely,

Macster.

Spiffyjiff

what he said.

this doesnt help you, i know, but i hit curb few yrs ago at about 25mph - lost traction on road salt in a traffic circle. only the right front hit, tho. bent rim, alignment way off but no other mechanical damage that they found. however, the bumper/lower wheel well area was bent upwards and bowed out slightly. (ie, the curb was higher than the lower edge of bumper so something inside - a brace, bracket or something? - got bent upwards.) you cant really tell unless you look closely, so i chose to leave it as is to remind me - as i can easily spot it since i know what to look for - not to be a friggin idiot anymore!