FocusCanada Forums

Several months ago, I hit a pothole a huge pot hole hard enough to throw the alignment off and move the strut a 1/2" or so in relation to the knuckle (perhaps the pinch bolt wasn't tight enough).

I had the car aligned, and all was well for a while, except the alignment drifted off again after several weeks. The steering wheel had to be slightly turned to travel straight.

Had the car aligned again, at a Ford SVT dealer no less, and once again, several weeks later the steering wheel is out of position. Clearly something with the passenger side front suspension is still amiss from slamming into the pothole, but before I start replacing parts, I wondered if anyone had suggestions of where to begin?

Yes, CTC Carling instead of Campbell Ford (I assume them since you said a Ford SVT dealer)

that, or go back to whoever did it and say "ok, the car fell out of alignment again I thought you were supposed to do a pre-alignment check to make sure this doesn't happen?"

how old are the tires? are they inflated properly? and are you sure that the alignment has not mess up your tires as well? also have your front rims inspected as one could also be warped from the impact or worse bent in a large area

Updates:

I dug out the alignment specs, and will post them below. I also just noticed that the front passenger side wheel (the damaged side) sits noticably inward of the fender than the driver side. I've attached a side by side photo below.

When I jacked the car up, there was zero side to play when grabbing the wheel at both 9 and 3 or 12 and 6.

Here are the alignment specs:


And pictures of the wheel:

(note steering wheel may not be perfectly straight)

To summarize: the wheel isn't sitting correctly in the fender and the toe has drifted out a 1/4" on the passenger side between alignments. Would this indicate a bent strut, tie rod or control arm, or some combination of the above?

go to can alignment in millgrove. it's on hwy 6 toward hamilton. best alignment place around here. owner races in ontario time attack.