Hey guys, I ran into a curb yesterday. I jacked the car up and SOMETHING is wrong with the front drivers side suspension... If I turn the steering wheel strait, the car goes to the left so I drove it back home with the wheel at a 40ish degree angle to the right. Please help me, any information or help is greatly appreciated. Maybe one of you guys that knows what a bent axel looks like can take a look at it. Call me up ANYTIME tomorrow except during 11:30am-12:45PM (mid-term) if you can a help me out. 727-4363 -Gene

Could be anything really.

Tie rod, control arm, subframe, anything or all. Looks like you'll have to go to a mechanic anyway to fix it, might as well go get an estimate and see if you can't snag the parts second hand.

gene you probably bent your control arm, get underneath and compare both sides to each other, look for odd creases or dents in the control arm, I doubt it is the axle.

Its most likely a bent control arm, they arent very strong in the WRX and both myself and a couple others have bent them in the past. They are easy to replace, and the part isnt too expensive even from subaru. If they are bent you can always upgrade to STi forged aluminum control arms :)

bump :(

what everyone else said gene, control arm. That is always the first thing to go in a curb check, if it's hard enough the strut will bend too. Usually it is a good idea to replace the rear mount on the control arm that's bent too, this is because the mount is aluminum. To see if your control arm is bent, measure clearance from the tire to the fender/mud flap area on each side and compare. If they are different, arm is bent. Also check the angle of the front sway bar end links. If one is angled different than the other, the arm is bent. To check the strut, measure clearance between the tire sidewall to the strut tube. Again if it is different, strut is bent. Good luck.

Jerry

If arm is bent, its a PITA ass to fix, been there, done that, will need air tools and about 2 - 4 hours of time with beer involved. It's no fun dropping the lower sub-frame connector, atleast not on a black wagon that has been once rolled...arm bent also by hitting a curb. Good luck, take pictures if you dont know what happen and post.

Axles dont normaly bend since they have to CV joints on them, they brake in half or sheer. ;p

dude, its not that hard at all. on the sedan the only thing that took extra time was accidently trying to turn the bolt not the nut lol. The sedan one comes out with minimal effort, you dont need to drop the lower subframe connector, you just unbolt some **** and it hammer out the ball joint and slap in the new ****, the OEM subaru unit comes pre-assembled with new bushings now, so there is even less work involved.

Damn, didnt know it was that easy on the Sedan, who knew the wagon was built stronger...or just more of a PITA ass to work on, HAHAH.

Does anybody have a spare control arm by any chance??? -Gene

yeah i remember you freaked me out I thought mine was gonna be a PITA after you told me about hte wagon, but as I was doing mine I was like *** is Jordy talking about? this is easy lol!

or a spare stock rim by any chance??? -Gene

yeah it took me like hour and a half to do mine in my drive way with the spare tire jack you should be able to get er done euge

its prolly not even that bad gene........you prolly just hit your steering out of alignment. if it was a bent control arm you would see that the wheel isnt sitting in the right place becuz of the bend, and if it was an axle, the car wouldnt be going anywhere becuz it would prolly hammer the front diff by the impact and grenade the gears.

I would just have it looked at and see what's wrong then go from there. An Alignment depending on where you go isn't that bad.

Sorry, but how much do you charge to do a tire swap for low profiles Chris?


-Wes