I hit a nasty pothole in the middle of the road a few weeks ago hard enough on the passenger side to bend my front wheel all to hell. I got a new set of wheels and a front end alignment, and now my steering wheel's off center a few degrees to the right. The shop I took it to was able to get everything aligned to where I wanted them, but the guy that did it said the tie rod adjustment was maxxed out on the pasenger side and there's nothing he could do about the steering wheel being off center. I did notice this though, this is the strut mount on the drivers side, the way it should look:


And this is the mount on the passenger side:

Notice how the camber adjustment is nearly maxxed out towards positive. In reality, I'm running -0.5* on both sides. The bolts on the passenger side were closer to the center of the slots, like the driver side before this happened. I'm thinking that something else is tweaked in there, but I have no idea what it could be. I'm no expert, that's why I'm comming to you guys Any ideas?

 

If the wheel was bent that bad it might have hit the arm on the knuckle & bent that as well.Get under the car & check it yourself.Dont rely on some shop alone.

 

I've been under it, but nothing seemed bent or out of place to me. I'll check it out again though.

 

one of two things.

1. you bent/damaged the a-arm, k-member or spindle

2. the guy who did the alignment is a retard and f-ed it up.

I think its option #2, i've seen it happen so many times at chain shops.

I would jack up the car and do a visual on the side that took the hit, make sure nothing it obviously damaged, check the a-arm perches on the k-member for bends or tears.

if it all checks out, take it to a different shop for a second opinion

 

a vote for #2, to lazy to adjust the tierods to be centered while the wheel was centered, they did it to me too, no reason for it other than lazyness

 

I had to change some tie rods on a truck last week. Same type of steering system as a third gen. After replacing the tie rods and doing a rough toe adjustment, I found the steering wheel was about a 1/4 turn out. (non locking steering column didn't help)

I reset the steering wheel when readjusted the left and right tie rods so that the wheels were straight again then redid the toe adjustment.

I can see the alignment shop's complaint about being out of adjustment. If the steering wheel is straight and he doesn't have enough adjustment to set the toe then the steering wheel needs to be moved.

However, you said it was only out a few degrees. There's no way you could be out of adjustment and not be able to center the steering wheel that little bit more.

The alignment shop also shouldn't have done any adjustments if suspension components are bent or damaged. I agree with everything 86TA just said. Your A-arm or spindle is probably bent. Although anything is probable, it's unlikely that the k-member is damaged if all you did was damage a rim when you hit the pothole. Try a different shop.

Looking at your adjustment plates, the tire would have been out a long way at the top for the adjusters to need that much movement inward. If you hit a pothole that hard, the spindle would be bent upward causing the top of the tire to go inwards. If the A-arm was bent upward around the ball joint it would shorten the length and put the ball joint further inward which would put the top of the tire outward.

Just judging by that, you probably have a bent A-arm. Wouldn't hurt to check the ball joint and A-arm mounts at the same time.

Nice adjuster plates. Whos are they?

 

J & M, hotpart.com

probably the best strut mounts out there, have the most adjustment, and warrantied for life.

 

idiot at shop is my vote

i have the same problem, and after being polite and after being rude they still insisted that it could not be strightened, let me also mention that i replaced EVERYTHING from tie rod end to tie rod end ............ before they did the alignment they also informed me i needed a new drag link.....WTF its brand new cant your shop monkey see that ...... i want someone else to work on it or im going else where............. still wound up with a crapy alignment, moral of the story.......... i my case was to find an old school alignment rack one with no computers and no lasers and some man old as dirt thats been doing alignments since the model T

 

I thought the Spohn design was nice until I saw those. I may just upgrade to J&M instead. I like the idea of having the caster and camber separate and independent of each other.

 

I would recommend getting the alignment done at a shop that does a lot of lifted trucks or Jeeps. There tech's will be the most skilled as they are use to working on vehicles that no longer follow factory spec and they have to use there brains to align the vehicles. A now centered wheel is not acceptable. You may also want to check if you bent a ball joint stud.

 

Got under the car again tonight and nothing seemed visibly bent or out of whack. I'm gonna take it to a shop that specializes in front end work the first chance I get. Hopefully the tech at the first shop was just being lazy that day. We'll see...keeping my fingers crossed.

 

Kind of a late update on this, as I fixed this problem quite awhile ago, but I ended up replacing both the passenger side A-arm and spindle, and there wasn't any issue with re-aligning it. Problem solved.

 

Glad to hear things worked out for you and it's always nice to get an update. When you replaced the old parts with the new ones, did you compare them side-by-side and notice if either of the parts were indeed bent?

 

Was the wheel sticking out alot further on one side compared to the other or were they equal? I'm trying to tackle this problem myself currently..

 

I put Spohn tubular A-arms on, so I couldn't really tell if the old arm was bent or not with a side-by-side comparison. And the spindle wasn't visually bent compared to the new one either. So I'm not sure what exactly was tweaked in there, but it was one or the other...possibly both.

They were both equally spaced out. Is one of your wheels sticking out further than the other?