Hello all,

I got ran off the road jumped the curb, car completely over the sidewalk, and ended up in a parking lot. No body damage.

3 wheels damaged, one bent.

When the steering wheel is straight passenger side front is straight but driver side wheel is toed in.

rear driver side chambered in.

I've changed the front upper and lower control arms, has not been aligned yet.

Tie rods are straight but I did not pull the boot to see if they got bent at the ends.

is my steering rack damaged? I can go lock to lock without crunches or odd sounds.

When I go over a speed hump I do hear a clunk from the front right side.

I cannot see any that is bent, is my unibody toast, that is the big question. I got new wheels and control arms already. Will have alignment this week. Should I change my tie rods before I go, am I missing anything?


no ball joints were bent.


advice please.

 

Put the car fully in the air, with no e-brake on, and grab the top and bottom of the wheels, push hard with one hand, pull with the other, alternate to push/pull the wheel and feel any play. Do the same with your hands on the left/right of the wheel.

Front:
up/down play is either upper or lower ball joint, or inner bushings
left/right play is either inner or outer tie rod
left/right AND up/down is wheel bearing, or combo of both of the above

Rear:
harder to narrow down, but again up/down AND left/right play could be wheel bearing, and there's 7 bushings per side that could be bad.

Often you need a 2nd person to put their hand on all the joints and tell you which one they feel the play on.

Typically if a wrecked car came into my shop, I'd be putting it on a 2-post for the above inspection, and looking for bent arms/subframes/tie rods, and putting the wheels on a balancer to verify they're not bent. Then once all that checks out, put it on the alignment rack to see if I can align it back to it's baseline. Sometimes you're not able to see the damage with your eyes, hence the alignment/balance, but inspection needs to happen first.