Slid into a small curb today and.....(please help!)

[Chiggles]

So the first signs of winter showed its ugly head today when I left for work this morning and not even a block away from my apartment, I go to make a left turn and ended up sliding my front right wheel into the curb. Lovely, right? Not a lot of snow has fallen really, but the fact that the temperature hovers just below freezing in the morning is enough to turn the slushy top layer into ice cuz I fell on my a-- as soon as I stepped out of the car to look at the damage. Anyway, the rim seems fine except for a bit of "scratching" around the part of the lip where it came into contact with the curb.... kind hard to explain what it looks like... it looks the lip had been chewed or gnawed on a bit the way a pencil is when you chew it.

It still seems to drive ok.... there might be a slight pull to the left, but what concerns me more is that if I crank the steering wheel all the way to the left I hear some kind of a knock (not a tap or a click) coming from the right side and only under acceleration when I turn to the extreme left. While doing this, I also seem to feel like the car is jerking or shaking a bit while it turns like it's running over some pebbles in an alley even though it's a perfectly smooth piece of paved road I was testing this on. I've gotten in and out of the car numerous times to make sure my tire wasn't rubbing against the inside of the well and that seems fine so wtf?? Extreme right turning, or just regular turning doesn't produce any noises or unusual vibrations.

Also, it's kinda faint to hear since the crack in my exhaust piping makes it rather loud, but I feel as though I can hear a bit of road noise now... almost like a "whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa" warbling noise. It gets more distinct under higher speeds.

Although it was a solid hit, it wasn't too hard of a hit I think since I didn't really go flying forward out of my seat and I didn't jump over the curb nor is the rim warped out of shape. I mean, how fast could I have been going doing a normal turn in a residential area like a reasonable person, right? It's not like I was zipping out of the intersection like a madman or anything like that.

So given all that, can you guys tell me how much damage has happened?? Re-alignment seems obvious and I'm hoping that will stop that slight jerking I feel when I turn to the left, but is it also possible that I've screwed up my axle and/or my wheel bearing in the impact???

[PATDIESEL]

May have bent the rim a bit, misaligned the car, bent a steering arm, messed up the lower ball joint and maybe even a few other things. First thing is first. Get the alignment checked, then the wheel balanced (go ahead and rotate the tires while you are at it) If the alignment and balance go ok, then check for bent suspension parts. However, I bet it is one of the former suggestions first.

[Aston Wards]

agree with Pat, but the knocking is probably a CV joint that was bad before, only you've just noticed it now

[Chiggles]

May have bent the rim a bit, misaligned the car, bent a steering arm, messed up the lower ball joint and maybe even a few other things. First thing is first. Get the alignment checked, then the wheel balanced (go ahead and rotate the tires while you are at it) If the alignment and balance go ok, then check for bent suspension parts. However, I bet it is one of the former suggestions first.

I'll be having the alignment and balancing done on Wednesday since I'm having the O2 sensors done that day anyways, so yeah, I'll get that checked first. You mention a possible bent steering arm. What symptoms are there to indicate this?? Cuz I did notice that when I turn my steering wheel more than 180º, it seems as though the "bottom" of the steering wheel sits lower on the horizon of the dash when looking straight at the wheel vs. how it's aligned when the car is going straight and the "top" of the wheel is of course on top. In other words, if I keep spinning my steering wheel all the way to one direction, the wheel doesn't look like it's spinning on its center. Maybe it was always like this and I didn't notice that til now, but is this an indication that my steering arm is bent??

Also, my CV joints should be ok. When I had the car pre-inspected a year ago, it was fine. And I just had maintenance work done on the car back at the end of July as well so it should've been noticed then if there was a problem developing with the CV joints. I'll check it out, but I doubt that's the cause for that warbling noise I described. It has been suggested by a friend earlier tonight that the noise could be that I bent the rotor in that corner? What are the odds of that??

[bushidosword]

I had the same problem AFTER my cv joint blew,
deffinately check your lower ball joint, thats what mine was!

[Chiggles]

Well, I had things checked out last Wednesday and as it turns out, I shifted my front right wheel off by about 1.5º so everything got realigned and re-balanced since I was due up for a tire rotation anyway. Steering arm checked out ok as there were no warps or discolorations along the beam to indicate any particular points of stress. And from giving the tire a jiggle and just physically looking at it, it doesn't seem like there seems to be any problems with the ball joint. Which leads me to ask, how would sliding into a curb affect the ball joint?? Cuz the guy who did the work for me couldn't understand why I was asking him to check the ball joint - he couldn't figure how the impact might affect it and I don't have a clue either. He suspects that the rotational noise that I'm getting is more likely that I've got a problem with my wheel bearing, and that's what I had been suspecting all along.

Anyway, that part was the good news. The bad news is that during the tire rotation, it was discovered that both my CV axles are going/gone. Which explains the knocking I'm getting while turning extreme left. I guess I should be glad that I don't get any noises under normal turning angles since it suggests that the problem hasn't gotten too serious just yet which gives me time to save up for the repair. Can anyone tell me how much the CV axles are to replace??? ....And a price for the wheel bearing too for that matter?

[Grants]

The CV joints and axles aren't too bad, I seem to remember about $100 each over your neck of the woods but I'm sure someone will be able to give you a more accurate price than that. (They're AU$140 here.)

So it looks like you did ok out of it - the CVs would have needed to be replaced anyway so aren't a result of the slide.

[PATDIESEL]

A damaged ball joint in a curb collision is a reach, but still worth checking out. Glad it is ok though.