Sort of crashed last night...

[em2evol]

Hi guys

Went out for a nice country drive last night and it's ended up costing me an arm and a leg 

Was driving down a hill, then at the bottom there was a small mound type bit in the road. As I approached it, another car was coming in the opposite direction, almost in the middle of the road so I was forced to turn slightly left as I hit the mound... Was a little bit of lift then hit the ground with an almighty crash... Felt odd, so pulled over - tyre flat as a pancake. Went and got a new tyre this morning - turns out there was a bulge so must have hit the ground proper hard to make the tyre just burst. There was a split all round the tyre wall... So new tyre + tracking cost £150, even though they said they couldn't adjust the rear nearside tracking rod due to seizure and the front camber was off. So then went to another tyre place that could do camber - they told me they could do the seized up tracking rod and they'd look at the camber. They also said the garage shouldn't have charged me for tracking as they'd not really done it. I challenged the first garage but didn't really have a leg to stand on as I was only relaying what the second garage told me. Then the second garage called me and said the front camber was not adjustable - I called VW and they confirmed - said something must be bent or damaged in order for the camber to be out. My car is still with the second garage but I asked them not to do any tracking seeing as they were going to charge me £60 and VW said they'd need to do tracking also, costing me £110, just to find out the problem. I have now decided to go to an independant dealer... But I'm frustrated that I don't know what's likely to be the problem and so potentially am very open to be taken advantage of...

Any thoughts (other than not to go out for a nice country drive again?)


Thanks guys

[jon-tfsi]

My camber was fine (even both sides) before i got some work done to the steering rack.
When i got the car back a had the tracking setup and the camber was uneven . . . . . and like you say, not adjustable.

In my case i knew nothing was bent so after doing some research i found out the camber can be adjusted slightly by unbolting the subframe and moving that.
my camber was -1.24 deg on the drivers side and -0.5 neg on the passenger side.
The movement on the subframe is only slight, but enough to even those figures out. There is basically i little bit of slogger on the bolt holes.

In your case, something might be bent . . . . but i would guess if the figures are similar to mine were, things may have just moved slightly on their bolt holes.

[em2evol]

Hmm, thanks for this, I will bring it up tonight when I go and see the guys in the garage... Hopefully they'll be an honest bunch who will tell me if this is possible or not... I hate not being in the know because they could just say anything and I'd know no different! 

[S2 Ant]

How hard did you hit things and did you hit anything at an angle to bend things inward or outward, or just a heavy thump down?
An idea of how far out things are might also help to point toward suggestions

[em2evol]

Turns out I need a new shock absorber as it's "very bent" :-( Goodbye £170...

[Andy]

Good reason now to get coil overs

[em2evol]

Good plan... I'll do that if I get a spare wad of cash! I can't believe this has happened... I only went for a drive! It's insurance month this month too - another £570 for nothing! Great 

[stealthwolf]

If that other car had hit you, that £570 would have helped immensely. Don't knock insurance.