I had a little incident a short while back involving rain and a curb, and well...I think I blew my front right strut. My car makes a clunking sound at a certain point when turning the wheel. The sound comes from the strut, and you can feel vibration from the loose top of the strut. The gap between the wheel and the wheel well is slightly larger on the side that took the impact of the curb (at 10-20? mph, at an angle with the tire facing the curb). Also, my caster and camber are WAY off, but the toe can be aligned.

I went to see my mechanic, but just missed him. I need to order the parts soon, because my messed up alignment is wearing my 600 dollar tires unevenly. So, what do you think? Did I blow a strut or does it sound like something else? Any input is appreciated. I just want to get to the bottom of this and have it fixed.

 

hahaha
this is kinda funny
i had an exact same accident last november..... and it was raining too, but mine was on the left side......

i was at a faster speed though i think around 40 mph....
i blew one if my struts, but if you can still drive your car then the strut is probably fine.....
i had to change the lower control arm and the upper strut mounts.....
and my left wheels is moved back a bit.... closer to the rear side of the wheel well
but it is fine, cuz if it is a bit off, it doesnt really m,atter.. as long as the allignment is fine....

 

haha, yeah sounds like the same sh*t. I hope its not the lower control arm cause I just fixed that (unrelated incident; not my fault). I think the upper mount is possibly what broke. I'll find out tomarow.

 

Wow, alot of people with control arm failures. I saw one guy on here fix his recently under warranty. Hey A33, did you get yours fixed under warranty? What did you do to fix? Its sounds liek your tires is crooked.

 

the upper strut mount on mine is kinda bent
and i ordered one from dave b for around $40 i think.....
i think the control arm is more expensive though...

 

My tire is pushed back in the same way you are describing. I hope my problem is just the upper strut mount--that will be relatively cheap to fix.

By the way, anyone who needs parts: call Matt at Tustin Nissan, and say you are a maxima.org member. He will hook you up with amazing deals on nissan parts and other stuff. Search for tustin nissan in the group buys section for details. (Lower control are normally about $220 and Matt can hook them up for about $150).

 

And, boy does his jaw hurt!


ADMAN

 

Haha, I had the exact same accident last november in the rain on the right side. Jacked up my camber and toe pretty badly. Turned out strut upper strut mount and lower control arm all had to be replaced.

We should have a name for this accident.. call it the "november rain manuever"

I believe cheston did the same thing heh

 

Hey a33 and Chinkzilla,
What was wrong with your lower control arms? Was the bushing just broken or was the whole thing bent?

I'm going to my mechanic right now, so hopefully I can get some answers (depends if he has time and if there is a lift open).

 

Ok, I just got back from an autobody/alignment specialist (friend of my mechanic), and he tells me that everything from the strut to the control arm to the thing the arm is attached to (forgot the name) is slightly bent back and in.

He can bend everything back and align my car perfectly for $325. Does this sound about right? Can this be done such that I wont have any recurring problems? Has anyone here done anything like this before?

Thanks
Daniel

 

i dont know much about this stuff... but if you are spending $325 already
i would rather have him install a new control arm.....
i think its safer, but ask the experts here and they might have another answer for you....
on my case, my control arm was bent....

 

It would cost me around $300 just to get a new lower control arm installed, but there would still be problems with everything else. It will cost a small fortune to have EVERYTHING replaced (1000-1500), but I was told he can make everything as good as new in terms of perfomance.

I have my old lower control arm only the bushing is broken. Can I put my new good bushings in my old lower control arm that isn't bent???

Apparently this guy is REALLY good with this sort of thing. They do mercedes and bmw work (frame, alignment, etc..), anong other things. He said it would take about two days.

 

if he knows what he is doing, then great, if it performs the same, then i would want to save the money too...

 

The same thing just happened to me today, but I got cut off by an Eclipse and instead of hitting him, ate some curb. Mine makes the same noise you were referring to, but since my KYB AGX's are already in the mail, I'm not worried about replacing struts. The control arm is a different story though. Hopefully I didn't jack anything other than the strut up, because I don't have a 2 day period to be able to not have the car, and don't feel like spending $1-1.5K on new control arm stuff. I did hit the curb pretty hard though, so that may be what ends up happening.

 

That sucks. Did you go up onto the curb or did you bounce off of it? You should have your alignment checked and get them to print the numbers. If your caster and camber are way off like mine, something is probably bent.