Misalignment after hitting pothole?

[Plumbus]

I was leaving a BK drive-through, and the street parallel to it is next to a building under construction. It was raining, and as I was leaving I hit a pot hole, HARD. It was full of water so it was impossible to see. The front and rear right tires hit it. What is the chance the camber or toe settings got wrecked?

Car drives okay, there are no weird noises, but I haven't had much time to drive it except while getting home after the impact. Coils are HKS SP 8k/8k, midway dampening settings and 1 in drop.

[marco_mc22]

High, alignment slips more frequently than you may think especially using camber bolts and rear stock toe arms.

[soundman98]

potholes happen

[Plumbus]

Originally Posted by marco_mc22

High, alignment slips more frequently than you may think especially using camber bolts and rear stock toe arms.

Not using camber bolts but coilover body has eccentric top hole. my alignment guy has free alignment checks which is great but I'll most likely lose $100 I could have used in a year or two for scheduled alignment. sometimes I hate this city so much.

more than anything, I'm concerned this could lead to a busted strut tower in the future. there's a lad in the twins subreddit recently that had a destroyed strut tower and the concensus was it's pretty much impossible to properly fix. hope Im wrong.

[EndlessAzure]

I've hit stuff way harder and my strut towers are just fine. I wouldn't worry about the towers

Easiest way to tell if you need a new alignment is if the car handles differently or the steering isn't centered anymore.

Check the wheel for bends. If the wheels are bent, probably alignment will need some help as well. That isn't to say that the alignment got jiggled anyway (regardless of whether or not the wheels are bent).

Not anything out of the ordinary as far as potholes and impacts go

[Plumbus]

Originally Posted by EndlessAzure

I've hit stuff way harder and my strut towers are just fine. I wouldn't worry about the towers

Easiest way to tell if you need a new alignment is if the car handles differently or the steering isn't centered anymore.

Check the wheel for bends. If the wheels are bent, probably alignment will need some help as well. That isn't to say that the alignment got jiggled anyway (regardless of whether or not the wheels are bent).

Not anything out of the ordinary as far as potholes and impacts go

Good to know Azure. What happened to you that was harder? Mine made the car jump and jolt with the impact, t'was a deep ass hole I fell in. I gotta check the rocker panel or pinch weld area too, hopefully didn't hit that as well.

But other than that it seems to be driving okay still. Wheels are not bent, but they are the durable and heavy OEM PP wheels. I wonder if my TC105xs or some RPF1s would have survived that.

[EndlessAzure]

Originally Posted by Plumbus

Good to know Azure. What happened to you that was harder? Mine made the car jump and jolt with the impact, t'was a deep ass hole I fell in. I gotta check the rocker panel or pinch weld area too, hopefully didn't hit that as well.



But other than that it seems to be driving okay still. Wheels are not bent, but they are the durable and heavy OEM PP wheels. I wonder if my TC105xs or some RPF1s would have survived that.

Bent two wheels on one side on a pothole under hard braking. Bent all 4 track wheels at some point dropping wheels in ditches or apexes. Went off a rough course at 80 MPH

[Plumbus]

Originally Posted by EndlessAzure

Bent two wheels on one side on a pothole under hard braking. Bent all 4 track wheels at some point dropping wheels in ditches or apexes. Went off a rough course at 80 MPH

Sounds rough. What do you think would cause a strut tower to bust open like that guy? Someone mentioned over torquing the top hat nuts, and that's likely the case but it's hard to believe that would have more impact than a ditch.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ft86/commen...ng_the_engine/

[soundman98]

Originally Posted by Plumbus

Good to know Azure. What happened to you that was harder? Mine made the car jump and jolt with the impact, t'was a deep ass hole I fell in. I gotta check the rocker panel or pinch weld area too, hopefully didn't hit that as well.

But other than that it seems to be driving okay still. Wheels are not bent, but they are the durable and heavy OEM PP wheels. I wonder if my TC105xs or some RPF1s would have survived that.

Sounds like 3/4's of the railroad crossings around me. A few i make an effort to jump to clear the bad spots

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Plumbus

Sounds rough. What do you think would cause a strut tower to bust open like that guy? Someone mentioned over torquing the top hat nuts, and that's likely the case but it's hard to believe that would have more impact than a ditch.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ft86/commen...ng_the_engine/

If it feels fine and drives straight you probably didn't hurt a thing. The alignment may be off a hair but if you are dialing in a specific track setup it is likely still within the acceptable range.

The towers are not made out of sugar and can take a beating. That is why you have suspension and not solid bolt on axles. They take the bulk of the hit. Yes, you will get bounced around a bit and can bend wheels, snap bearings and all sort of weird and wonderful things but damaging a tower by hitting a pothole would be spectacular.

The dude on Reddit is either not telling the whole story or it happened before he got the car. My guess in that case would be a very poor installation job on the coilover not damage from a bump. A bump causing that would have shattered pain and created stress marks. There is no sign of any upward force at all.