[riffe raffe]

i was playing silly buggers and took a corner a bit to fast and clipped a curb (clipped is a mild description)....now i have two issues....
1) is there any way of repairing/hidding the rather large gouges/scratches i have taken out of the wheels. if so what, cause i dont want to/cant spend the money replacing the wheel.
2) I think i may have knocked the wheels out of alignment (hopefully..cause its probably cheaper) or worst case bent the struts/mounting or some other expensive thing. its not obviously out of place but it does look slightly tilted. how can i tell?
Will put up pics soon.
Either way i am bracing myself for the crappy thought that it will cost some $$$ to fix!

silly silly silly me
[mad]

 

[SVT Robzor]

Happens to the best of us.

Somebody smarter than me will rattle off the whole list of parts you may or may not have damaged, I'd be chiefly concerned about the tie rod though. Tie rod failure = steering loss, which is, shall we say undesirable.

You can get someplace as cheap as VIP or NAPA to take a look, say you need an alignment, they'll probably come back and tell you you need a new tie rod end and it'll be ~$150 or so. Hopefully its around that cheap, and hopefully thats all it is.

 

[BlacKnight]

There are places out there that repair wheels. We have used a couple of them here in the Dallas, TX area. Generally, it costs about $95 to $125 US to fix (at least around here) a gouged wheel. I will tell you this, Ford has started putting cores on the newer vehicle wheels to keep them out of the hands of the repair companies. They say they don't trust the repair processes some companies use. Just use your judgement, common sense, and a little research, and you should be OK.

 

[babyface]

what do people mean when they say "cores"

but yeah, look for a wheel repair place, and have yoru suspension checked by a dealer or independent mechanic.

 

[svtguy21]

has anybody bother to look were he is from good luck with that.

 

[HaveBlue83]

yeah, I saw that too....guess they didn't catch the accent......

 

[Geezer]

Gouges and scrapes you may be able to sand out. Using a little body filler will work too. Sand and repaint the wheel. Just make sure the bounce off the curb didn't crack the wheel or bend it. It might be worth having put on a balancing machine and checked for run-out.

If you bent any suspension components it would probably be tie rods or lower control arms. If it was a really bad hit, yes you could have bent the shock as well but you would also bend the items I mentioned. By all means have it put on an alignment rack. Tell them what you did and they'll check the full front end for you.

 

[ZX4STDoug]

With Perth having a population of 1.5 Million, give or take, I'm pretty sure there'll be a Ford store near him, and a wide variety of independent shops, too.

 

[SuperFlea]

what do people mean when they say "cores"

Correct me if i'm wrong... "Cores" means that you have to exchange your old part for the new one.. example, when you buy a new battery at AutoZone, you have to leave your old battery or leave a Deposit on it, the deposit is givin back to you when you take in your old battery. Hope you understood me.

 

[riffe raffe]

thanks ppl...will get it check out. there is actually a ford store on the other side of my block. The wheel i should be able to repair myself...hopefully i have not to anything mechanically serious. will get it check out.