E30 Zone

Hello guys..............

Had a bit of an accident this morning on the way to work and kirbed the car on the passenger side really badly............ouchhh!!! Honestly Only doing 30mph, sun was in eyes and BANG!!!! you can guess the rest!!!

"THIS WAS THE WHEEL"
IMG]http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u190 ... ics009.jpg[/IMG]





ANYWAY....At first the car was drivable but shuddered quite a bit but managed to get it home and left it there till after work.

Took the wheel off, nothing out of place on first inspection looked fine, nothing loose, hub was good, disc was good, TCA good, d/shaft good, followed up the strut & spring and that looked all in tacked, all was fine, then i looked at the strut top mount under the bonnet and noticed the 3 bolts were not as straight when compared to the other side, obviously its had a bit of a smack, but please look at the photos and you'll see wots up!!


"DRIVERS SIDE -TO COMPARE"




"PASSENGER SIDE WHERE I HIT....LOOKS LIKE THEIR ON AN ANGLE EH??"





Thought i'd wrecked it, but wot i did was, put a perfect spare wheel on and went for a drive, thinking the tracking was going to be out, and tALL SORTS!!!!

BUT IT WAS ABSOLUBTLY FINE TO DRIVE.....SAME AS BEFORE, DIDN'T SHAKE, SHUDDER OR PULL TO 1 SIDE, AT SPEED OR GOING SLOW, LOCK 2 LOCK WAS PERFECT AS BEFORE, NOT A THING WRONG...PROMISE!!

NOW... is it going to be ok, is there anything else i should look for??? PLEASE, just for piece of mind, MOT is this Saturday.....I'M BRIKKIN' IT NOW!!!

CHEERS

you might be lucky and only have a buckled wheel

hi there, the only way to tell is to remove the wheel where u hit.. remove the strut and inspect..

and then u can also shine a torch inside the stut top mount and see inside there if anything is out of place.. nothing a 5pound hammer cant sort out.. lol

anton

I'd get the camber and castor checked with a proper alingment specialist. That strut top don't look too happy to be honest. If it all checks out okay then fine but if not, as said before, some careful dressing with a club hammer should straighten things out once the strut is out.

If the alignment is out, don't adjust anything until you've straightened out the metal work as best you can. that way only minimal adjustment will be required.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Are you sure the top mount didn't look like that before?
The three bolts are not 120 degrees apart, so if someone has not noticed and forced the strut back up into the turret and then tightened the nuts thats what it would look like.
If it was ok before then the top mount has buckled and will not sit flush under the turret and could eventualy rub and either rust or shear a chunk out of the turret.
Either way i'd replace the top mount, there only about £13 but will require the spring to come off.
Because it looks like the whole strut has been yanked straight down past its limits you should also check the collar that holds the shock into the strut and the bottom ball joints. And then expect to replace the wheel bearing after a few thousand miles

on the other hand - that car looks really well cared for.
Its often not as bad as you first think!