What have i done :( help please

[SteveJJH]

I hit a kerb fairly hard last night, but there was no damage to the wheel, and the wheels and steering wheel seemed to still point in the right direction, so i thought id got away with it.

The only time id driven it since was in the snow so i hadnt noticed this problem: I drove it today on wet tarmac and it felt like i was on ice. i was constantly fighting with the steering wheel to try and keep it in a straight line, steering had little effect and i seemed to spin the wheels a lot easier than everybody else.

What have i done? is it steering? the steering was going a bit sh*t anyway as there was a massive dead spot in the straight ahead position. i suppose it could be driveshafts, but i think i was spinning both wheels (at different times). Can someone help with a guess at what it could be and how much it would cost please?

 

[Barryd]

Might have knocked out the tracking.

 

[KDF]

first of all get the tracking checked, while its there get them to have a look at all the joints to make sure nothing has bent.. etc.

It would take a fair wack to bend anything though.

 

[RobFenn]

The kerbed wheel might be buckled, i drove a mk1 golf into some armco, wheel looked fine but it wasnt!

 

[telford_mike]

Tracking - about £30 at your local kwikfit or similar.

 

[steve_rt]

i did the same thing last time it snowed, and i ended up needing a new rim and a new lower arm, + the bearing went very quickly ater that so i needed one of those aswell! for me,the steering was biased to the right, and was very wallowy round the corners. The bodyshop who are gonna fix it on tuesday have a geometry machine that they put it on to measure the components and find out if you have bent anything, and have put anything out of alignment. It might be worth doing that if the tracking doesnt sort it!

 

[SteveJJH]

thanks everyone. Maybe im being pessimistic, but Id say its more serious than tracking. its difficult to tell with all this snow about, but it really pulls around all over the place, if it werent for the fact that i thought i was spinning both wheels, id say id broken a drive shaft. I guess ill have to get it to a garage somehow. I hope its ok for BB tuning RR on sunday.

 

[weight]

dead spot is excessive wear in the lower joint in the steering column.

wondering steering or a sensation of lightness is the tracking.

 

[SteveJJH]

ok. ill hope that its that then.

Im quite annoyed with myself actually. I dont think there was anything i could do about it once i started to slide (i tried doing nothing, flooring it and eventually panicked and slammed the brakes on, nothing made any difference) but i shouldnt really have got myself into that situation in the first place. Lesson learned i suppose, luckily still while i have cheap alloys, hopefully it wont be too expensive a lesson.

 

[SteveJJH]

ARSE!

Ive bent the sub-frame and broken the anti-roll bar mounts. Gonna be £600 at least.

 

[Tom]

Nah surely not £600 bit steep init?

 

[SteveJJH]

it needs new bits, ill find out what exactly later. Im not exactly clued up on what is there. I think it needs a new sub frame and lower wishbone. What sort of price should i be paying?

 

[weight]

wishbones are £30

subframe get 2nd hand from a renault specialist breakers (back of autotrader job)