View Full Version : Something serious?
A couple of months ago i had a minor accident and had to have the right hand side of my suspension fixed by my insurance co. When i got it back i noticed it pulled to the right and was having a bit of steering wheel vibration. Took it back and told them and they said i should go and have the tracking and balancing done again. Took it to a different garage and had it done, still felt funny and now pulled to the left so i took it back a second time with the same trouble and when he checked it out the balance on the wheels and the laser alignment was spot on. (saw it with my own eyes) Anyway i'm waiting to take it back to the place the insurance co. used and ask them to have another look as it is still pulling and vibrating. I have very basic car knowledge but i'm guessing the left hand side (which didn't get replaced) has been slightly damaged and this was what was causing the problem. When i told them this on the phone they tried to fob me off with more tracking/balancing bollocks. Anyone know what else it could be ? camber (whatever that is)? Or a more mechanical explanation for why them not replacing the left is mucking up my car?
Thanks in advance for reading this crap and hopefully replying...
Whyme
big ALI H
12-11-2003, 14:27
Mmmm, i haven't got a clue. BUT do you have any SEAT specialists (NOT a dealer) in your area? If so ask them to have a look/ drive of it and see if they can work out what it is. Alternatively if you know anyone who works at a garage (regardless of whether a dealer or not and regardless of whether they specialise in SEATS), ask them to look/ drive it and see what they suggest it could be.
I'd be tempted to ring your insurance company and tell them that you are getting independent advice as to whats wrong with the car. Ask them that if something is found to be wrong, will they pay the bill? Even if they say no and you have to pay for an inspection, if something is found then its worth the hassle in my opinion. You can then take the report to your insurance company.
Hope this helps mate:cheers:
Thanks for the advice mate, think i'll give em' a ring tomorrow. It's been going on too long - just want my car back to normal.:(
when you say laser aligned... do you have a print out?
if you smacked the back end then they've most likely replaced the (cheap) stub axle - although the beam may well be bent.
Can you give me the figures that are printed on the alignment sheet?
Cheers
Mark
Haven't got them on me as i'm at work - think they said '-0' or '+0' on both sides - it was the front that was replaced.
Thanks
Whyme
that'd be why you have wobble it pulling to the left
dead ahead = not good handling
camber should be std -0.5degree's with a small amount of toe in 0.1 degree
if you can safely drive on the wrong side of the road - do you pull to the right?
Not tried that one yet!! ... if i go on the right hand side of the duel carriageway it pulls me onto the left. Is the camber setting the same for all SEAT's? Do you think they will know what the camber setting should be if they are all different?
they should do....all cars are listed - and some vary - but the majority of FWD SEAT's share the same setup IIRC
I would suggest that you get it aligned somewhere a little better - but it will cost some
www.amdtechnik.com or www.northamptonmotorsport.com are both 'good' places
Cost you about £120 all in.
Mark
hopkinsgm
12-11-2003, 16:57
Originally posted by WHYME
...Took it back and told them and they said i should go and have the tracking and balancing done again. Took it to a different garage and had it done...
The garage that undertook the work should have checked tracking and camber when they rebuilt the suspension. If you change any of the major suspension components (wishbone, strut, etc) then the camber needs checking and will almost certainly require adjustment. If they didn't have the gear to be able to do this (and an employee how actually knows how to operate it), they REALLY shouldn't be rebuilding your suspension.
It may sound stupid but depending on how the suspension came to get damaged - I assume you hit something or something hit you - have you actually checked that the wheels are still the correct shape (round)? Are there and gouges out of the tyres (sidewall or tread) that may have knocked the balance out? Are the balance weights stil in place? Are the wheel bearings in good condition? How about the driveshafts and CV's? Depending on how the impact happened, these are all things that could have been damaged.
Most insurance repair work is warranted these days - so they bl00dy well ought to pay to have it put right whether they put something back together incorrectly, incorrectly aligned or just failed to replace a component they hadn't spotted was damaged.
Again, depending on the nature of the damage, you may have a castor angle problem. And if that's the case, I wish you luck.
Just as a quick "idiots guide" (not suggesting you're an idiot btw ;) ), the various geometry settings are:
Tracking (or toe) - if you looked from above, do the front tyres point inwards (look like /-\) or point outwards (looks like \-/)? Pointing inwards is toe in, pointing outwards is (no prizes for guessing) toe out. Manufacturers usually specify FWD cars with a little toe out for directional stability. A little toe in tends to make the car a bit easier to throw into corners but a bit more twitchy when driving in a straight line. Clearly anything like /-| or \-| is bad...
Camber - If you stand in front of the car, do the wheels look like /-\ or \-/? /-\ is negative camber, your car should probably have either neutral camber (|-|) or a little negative (up to about 1 degree), more is bad as you'll wear the insides of your tyres out pretty fast, positive camber is just generally a bad thing to have on a FWD car... As before, setting should be equal from side to side. |-\ or |-/ are not good...
Castor (or caster) - front wheels are used for steering. They pivot around an axis to do this. On a single wishbone McPhearson strut arrangement (as so many FWD VAG cars have used over the years), the axis is formed by the suspension strut (damper) and balljoint at the end of the wishbone that is clamped to the hub carrier. Whilst you'd intuitively tend to think that this axis would be vertical, in practice it's usually canted back by a few degrees. The reason for this is that it tends to make the car pull its' steering into the "straight ahead" position. A bent strut can cock the angle up. So can a bent wishbone. It's possible that the inner wing was bent in the impact, in which case using all new components elsewhere will mean that the castor angle is still wrong. It's not typically adjustable on a VAG arrangement.
Sorry if the explanations are a bit tech - hope this is all of some help to you. There's some slightly longer explanations of these and some clearer diagrams in a Suspension FAQ I wrote ages ago on the main site.
[edit - address for the article is http://www.seatcupra.net/reviews.php?descrip=Suspension - the diagrams & stuff are towards the bottom...]
Thanks again. Learning a lot of stuff already. From what i can gather it's either the castor or the camber. When i had the accident (went into the back of someone at an angle only hitting the right side) i had different wheels on my car - about a month later i had a blowout on the same side that was damaged and the inside of the tyre was bald. Would the camber or toe show up on a laser alignment print out?
Also would the problem be fairly easy to spot (with a trained eye of course;) ) if the car was up on a ramp?
Whyme.
why was the inside of the tyre bald if the alignment was right?
did they check the tyre pressures before the alignment? if not then it's not worth jack (if they're wrong)
Laser Alignment isn't the best system out there. It's effective, but not as good as a Hunter based system. (gyroscopes I beleive)
M
The only people who worked on the car before the blowout was the insurance co's crash repair people - they told me the reason for the excessive wear on the inside was a balancing/tracking issue. Even though it was only on one side. The second place i went to for a second opinion checked everything and couldn't understand why the car looked straight on the alignment but was still pulling. I took it back and they checked it over again for free but still couldn't find the problem. I've told the crash repair centre that i'm coming down today and i'll mention to them to look at the camber and castor.
Whyme
hopkinsgm
13-11-2003, 11:22
Originally posted by WHYME
...the inside of the tyre was bald. Would the camber or toe show up on a laser alignment print out...
If the car was checked out on a proper 4 wheel alignment rig, the printout usually shows toe, camber and castor for front and toe and camber for the rear. If the inside of the tyre was bald, it's most likely that there was excessive negative camber on that wheel.
As for "easy to spot" - it's easier with the car on level ground tbh. Camber and toe problems can be spotted with the naked eye if it's far enough out - see the exagerated sketches in the article i posted a link to above. Castor is a bit more of a specialist job requiring tools to measure - I guess you could improvise by parking on level ground and dicking about with bob weights and protractors but as it's something you'll almost certainly not be able to do anything about it's a ballache of a job to try and do...
M0rk - good point about tyre pressures - one that's frequently overlooked unfortunately. And one i've mentioned several times in the past...
Excellent - i've got my 'i really know what i'm talking about' face down to a tee :D Hopefully by the time i go home tonight i should be able to drive along in a nice straight line !
Thanks for all the help
whyme :cheers:
hopkinsgm
13-11-2003, 15:55
Good luck mate - hope you get it sorted!
Update - they have agreed it does sound like a camber/toe issue rather than a tracking/balancing one. They have agreed to take it in on Thursday and do a Gyro system alignment on it and road test it until they (or more importantly me!) are happy with it.
Whyme
hopkinsgm
14-11-2003, 08:11
This is good news. I know what some of these places are like having dealt with an insurance approved bodyshop earlier this year. Car was damaged 30th June. Finally repaired to my satisfaction last weekend (8th November). How these places become "insurance approved" is beyond me - I know my insurers have been made aware of what a bunch of muppets they have carrying out repairs for them...
Anyway, back to thread. Hope it all gets sorted. The only shame of it all is that they didn't do the job right in the first place...
Ok, i took the car back again and they tried to say i'd had another accident in it !! Nice, anyways i got the print out from the alignment which i've attached - apparently on the left is before and right is after. And anything in bold is out and anything in normal is right. Can someone shed some light on if it is fixed according to this? Also the gap between the tyre and the inside of the front wing is about 1/2 inch out on one side - i've told them this and they are having it in again to replace the subframe?
sjtscott
17-12-2003, 10:08
I had an accident where I had to hit the curb hard to avoid someone else pulling into my path earlier this year. I had all the front left wheel and suspension mounting components replaced to get that corner back to the correct geometry.
In all 3x 4 wheel alignment checks were done after the garage replaced each parts.. they did this cos there wasn't anything visably wrong.. apart from a mark on the subframe. It turned out that this was damaged and was the final thing needed to fix it.
Anyway I got the final geometry print out from my car which showed before (out of tolerence) and after (in tolerence). So I've had a little bit of experience at reading these aligment print outs. By no means an expert though!
Looking at your print out it seems (based on bold being out) that your rear axle has some damage cos those figures are out of manufacturers tolerence (bold).. front seems ok now.
Thanks for the info mate, does seem a bit funny i thought the back would have been fine definatly no damage from the crash. Do you think the right wheel sits closer to the front inside wing than the left is causing the pull or is it normal for one to be sit slightly further back than the other? Hopefully the subframe should sort it and the back is just a straight forward problem!!
Andy
cupra16valveuk
17-12-2003, 18:42
Not wanting to be the bearer of bad news but have the jigged the car? if the gaps between the front wing and tyres are different sounds to be to be more serious that just bent suspension could it be damage to the chassis? I.E twisted? can be fixed but normally quite expensive. Try following the car with a friend driving it does is crab (ie front wheels not follow rears)at all?
If all easy options fail just menchon it
nick
mark sheerin
17-12-2003, 20:56
Originally posted by hopkinsgm
. How these places become "insurance approved" is beyond me - I know my insurers have been made aware of what a bunch of muppets they have carrying out repairs for them...
Its simple Glyn..to be insurance APPROVED the garage has to work at about £20 per hour less than a normal franchise garage in return for the Insurance Company feeding them lots of work.
I had a Merc repaired by an APPROVED repairer only to find they were complete w4nkers...they made a real mess of my car..took me 3 months arguing to sort out..Insurance Company didn't want to know telling me it was between me and the repairer..despite the fact that I reminded them that they had recommended them...strangely though the insurance company took a sudden interest when I showed them how the repairer had charged for parts either not replaced or not damaged in the original crash.
I would NEVER use an APPROVED repairer again...despite the fact that the insurance companies try to twist your arm by telling you that you will get the car worked on straight away by an approved repairer...but you'll have to wait for clearance for a non approved garage and you won't get a courtesy car while you wait.
Still waiting for a phone call about the subframe coming in, gonna get a mate to follow me tonight and see about the crabbing :(
Do you think it's worth taking it into the SEAT garage and asking them to have a sort of independant look to see if they can find anything? Oh and my leccy window has packed up too ... shite.
Maybe santa will bring me a new car?:no:
The one thing that caught me eye was that you said you where getting vibration. I had a similar problem after i hit a tree and bent me steering arm.
What had actually happened is that the wheel hub baring had cracked and each time i went round a right hand bend, i got alot of noise from the wheel hub. Soon as the SEAT garage replaced it (under warranty i might add ;)) the noise stopped but my gemoetry was out. Seems that the gemotry was set with a damaged wheel hub and as soon as a new one was put on, the geometry changed.
I would get this checked out as if the whole thing does go, then you'll have yet another accident. I think this is the reason the 225 Rs have a new wheel hub baring, the old ones break easily.
UPDATE - Car has had both lowering arms replaced and the sub-frame as well, car still feels dodgy and the gap is still different on both sides..... the bloke reckons it needs to go on the jig machine(?)- why it hadn't been put on there before is a mystery. He thinks it may be the chassis... the question is if the chassis has to be replaced is it not a write-off? And if so how does it work with me getting another car etc?
Thanks again
Andy
calling the SAME guy @ ya insurance company DAILY will help
i hate the way they cut costs
nearly as bad as fleet companies
and to top it off - they charge you the earth yearly to do so :p
if you have had a repair - DONT accept the car back until you have driven it and with relation to the repair TOTALLY happy
once you sign and drive away it's a hell of an uphill struggle to get it sorted
mark sheerin
22-01-2004, 14:43
I had a car that needed 'reshelling' so it was written off.
It depends on the value of the car and the cost of doing it..
For example they may well reshell an Audi saloon but not a ford focus.
The rule of thumb about write off is 60% I believe...
ie if the repairs are going to cost more that 60% of the cars current value then it is written off.
If a new bodyshell and respray and underseal and a rebuild of all the parts back onto the car is going to cost more than 60% of its current value then they will write it off.
Cheers for the advise guys, they seem to be very nice to me at the moment - been in there so many times i've got my own car parking space. :p On the upside i had a little corsa 1.2 16v which was a laugh, treated it with the upmost respect ;).
Well i guess the cars worth about 6k so hopefully it will only be a couple of grand to sort it, if it was written off do they give you the money or will i have to hunt for a sport for 6k?