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Hit a curb going 10mph, now steering wheel is crooked. - Please share experience?

decalservice

Stickin' it to the world!
Joined
Oct 1, 2008
Location
Austin, TX.
Hey guys,

I was on a date today and as luck would have it, I hit and went over a curb while turning. The car drives fine, and there is no shaking or major pulling to the left or right, but my steering wheel is off by about 10%. When I called my dad said "You know you only need ONE hand up her skirt, right"?
It wasn't funny considering the circumstance.

Before I take it to the alignment shop, I was going to ask If anyone has had this problem before..

Did an alignment fix the issue? I don't see anything bent, and there's no major driveability problems..

How does the car go out of alignment? Aren't there adjustment screws that need to get stripped of thread before it can me misaligned?

Hoping you can share some knowledge?

Cheers,
Rod
 
hit a curb at the same speed on the other side, should be good.


seriously though, your alignment IS off, or you skipped a tooth on your steering rack. Could have f**ked a tie rod as well or shifted the steering rack.
If you break a weakened tie-rod at speed you WILL crash, so take it in and have a pro check it out.
we dont need a dead t-bricker.
 
yeh 10mph its either alignment or control arm or radius rod. the alignment shop would probably do a shake down of the suspension to make sure there arent things that would throw the alignment out(a reputable place would) i remember when i got my last alignment it was an outer tie rod end that was messed up and it was real cheap to fix.
 
Watch out for this
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Mike
 
decal service... What hit the curb? Tire only or other? My brother hit a curb head on going head on at 10 mph (I think he's full of ish) and the suspension cross member got bent and it broke the steering rack off. Granted my '83 245 is way too low. Just take a rally close look at everything underneath especially if you heard metal hit the curb.
 
No, didnt hear metal hit the curb, and i didn't go parallel with the curb.... in other words, i was 90 degree angle with it. It happened when I was trying to turn left onto a twp way street and didnt see the divider, and I went over. I really didn't hear any sounds, and my air dam wasn't even damaged... I haven't had time to take it to an alignment shop, but just wanted to see if it was probably just alignment if I cant see anything bent really.
 
Your dad doesn't know what he's talking about. Drive with your knees, and put your hands to better use.:oogle:

Seriously, you more than likely will need alignment, and have them check the vehicle for bent things. If the shop is worthwhile, they should be able to give a thorough inspection of your steering & suspension components within a few hours, and diagnose what problems you may have. Shouldn't be anything major if you were only going 10mph.

Make sure they don't just overcorrect your alignment so the car goes straight! Sometimes a shop will do that to cover up real damage if the mechanic/tech is in a hurry or is just a lazy SOB. Have them give you a printout of your alignment settings, and then show those to a mechanic at another shop. If the other guy's eyes bug out, you've been hoodwinked.
Good luck.
 
You certainly bent something. The only way to deal with it is to take it to an alignment shop and have them attempt to align it. If they run out of adjustment on one side, then you will be able to narrow down what changed. It doesn't take much distortion to really change the alignment.
 
I was driving around my neighborhood in the 245 looking for my dog that took-off from the backyard, and while cruising in 2nd gear, looking out the window (instead of where I was going!), I hit a storm drain cement abutment that was only ~8" high. The car having IPD lowering coils, hit the corner of the cement drain square-on the steering rack and crossmember, right in the middle, 90 degrees, and went under the air dam. I bent both the rack & crossmember. The car sort-a drove OK, and had a rough spot in the turning circle, but within 500 mi I got a lot of tire wear.
Most likely the rack or one of the tie rods are bent, although probably not evident or visible, can't be good if the alignment is that bad. It should be obvious where the contact was made. If the curb hit the aluminum rack, yould not necessarily hear a metallic sound, just a thud or nothing at all.
Put the front end up on jacks, and turn the wheel lock to lock, and look for glitches in the movement, or restrictions one side or the other.
If your car has more than 150k mi, and you find a tie rod bent, replace the whole rack w/ends, as replacing just a tie rod is throwing good money after bad.
Time to replace the rack.
 
I jumped a curb at 50mph and blew both front tires, have you checked those? ;-)


Seriously though, you bent something. Have a pro scope it out, or crawl underneath and figure it out yo'self.
 
YES!!!! IT's official! Nothing broken or visibly bent! :clap::clap::party::party:

NTB did an alignment for $70 and life is better than ever now. However, he could not get the camber to spec, so I told him to leave it at - 1.5 deg.
 
$70???? I think most I ever paid was for $50 and that was from a shop that all they did was alignment but hey if nothing is broken
 
I did this with my V70 just about a month ago when it was icy. I slid into a curb going really slow while turning. My wheel was off and the steering felt odd. I took it into the tire shop to see what was up and after they got it on a lift it was apparent waht was bent. I toasted a engine sub frame and the control arm.

Glad to see nothing is messed up! 240s are ****ing tough. I've been retarded in mine so much and the car always pulls through. That cant be said about my V70, haha
 
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