Steering is out of line

Well my poor parking skills resulted in me reversing at full-lock into a bollard - my drivers side front wheel taking the full force of the hit

Anway, driving off afterwards it wasn't too bad, but the steering wheel was turned about quarter of a turn to the right when driving straight, also the wheel looked like it had moved forward (closer to the front bumper) by maybe 10mm.

Took the car to my local garage and he said that nothing really looked bent underneath the car, but the mountings for the wishbone had shifted a few mm forward on the bolts. He said that he had just slackened the bolts and moved everything back into place, and that I just need to go somewhere else to get the tracking done (he couldnt do it because the car has been lowered)

The car is much better now and the wheel is 'back' where it should be, and the steering wheel was just a little bit out, but have taken it to be tracked today and now the steering wheel is bent round to the left instead about 15 degrees!

Does anyone know whats up? Are the people doing the tracking not doing it right? Or could there be a problem stopping them from getting it right?

Cheers in advance! :thumbsup:

Hi mate, thanks for your reply.

The garage that done the repair is a mate who has been a mechanic for about 10 years. I'm pretty competent myself too for a 'non-mechanic'!

Normally its a wishbone or a tracking arm/track rod end that bends, and the first thing I done was check for those. Everything looked ok under the car so I took it to my mate who showed me where the mounts had moved a few mm.

After he moved the mounts, he measured everything up and it was all straight, but he said obviously the tracking is going to need doing and as my car is too low his equipment wont fit easily.

The wheelbase has been measured and is pretty much bang-on, but I cant work out why they couldnt get the tracking right. Its simply a case of aligning the wheels using their scope/laser or whatever and then adjusting the tracking arms to suit. Everything is good now, so even if something is very slightly out of line surely it can be tracked up to compensate for that?

My only worry is if i've knocked the steering rack over a few mm now from the force of impact.

Cheers, thats kinda what I thought - as long as everything is pretty much where it should be it can just be tracked to compensate.

I mean how hard is it just to set the steering wheel straight, with all 4 wheels pointing the same direction!!?