Suspension arm broken

If the car is built that weak, you're going to see them all over the side of the road after hitting pot holes. What is it you're actually looking at? Is the corner of the car sitting too low, or is that wheel squirting out and sitting at the wrong angle? If it's just too low, that is a spring issue. I find that highly unlikely you'd find a broken spring on a four-year-old car. Even if you did, that would not be caused by a crash, even a really serious crash. Springs break after the black coating chips off, then they rust from age, not mileage. At most, if a crash resulted in a spring breaking, it was about to break on its own anyway very soon. The impact just made it occur a little sooner.

A lot of small cars today have suspension systems that embarrass suspension and alignment specialists, but they are strong enough to hold up to rough roads and the kind of incidents like you described. With age, and especially if you live in a state where they throw a pound of salt on an ounce of snow, rust deteriorates those suspension system parts. That can lead to more damage in a crash than would normally be expected.

The place to start is by having the steering and suspension systems inspected at a tire and alignment shop. They people there are experts at finding the causes of noises, vibrations, uneven ride height, and bad tire wear. They all have small books that show every car model and year, where to take the ride height measurements, and what they should be. With the thorough inspection, they will be able to tell you what is needed and what caused any problems.

My first suspicion is the mechanic has an interest in protecting his customer and may be biased in his opinion. It's easier to tell a customer that someone else needs to pay the bill, than to argue with the car owner over that bill. That said, as a suspension and alignment specialist myself, I have seen unusual things, some that defy logical explanation. This is a good time to get a second opinion from a shop of your choice, not from a friend of this mechanic or car owner.

What we did used to see a real lot was Fords with steering parts that commonly fell apart in 15,000 miles, and a lot of uninformed owners would look for someone to blame, not realizing it was due to really poor designs. Around my area, a lot of shops don't want to work on VW's because they never seem to stay "fixed". You have to wonder if such a small impact can cause all this damage, how safe are you riding in that car, and worse yet, how safe are you with these cars coming at you on the highway? I'd be worried about its strength is I were to be involved in a crash.

Remember, I'm giving you my opinion with never having seen the damage or the basic condition of the car. The mechanic involved should be able to explain how the damage occurred, and that suspension damage on the other side of the car should be in line with the severity of the impact from your car. Car doors get crushed all the time in parking lots, and with the low speeds involved, it is extremely rare to find suspension damage.

As far as suspension system design goes, this car is a mess. The horrendous alignment angles specified are an attempt to reduce poor tire wear or overcome a handling or some other problem. This is why we shudder when we see these kinds of numbers.

To start with, "camber" is the inward or outward tilt of the wheel, as viewed from in front of the car. A wheel that is standing perfectly straight up and down would be at 0.00 degrees. Given the arcs the control arms go through as the car bounces up and down, tire wear is greatly decreased by setting camber slightly positive, to around 0.30 to 0.50 degrees. By 1.00 degree there is going to be excessive wear on that tire's outer edge. We actually had some very poorly-designed cars in the mid to late '80s that called for just under 2.50 degrees, and owners got angry when their new tires wore out in 15,000 miles. On those cars, along with this VW, camber is not adjustable. You're just stuck with what you got. This goes back to mid '70s VWs I used to work on. Camber is one of the three main alignment angles, and it is the one that has the biggest effect on tire wear.

Of equal importance, front camber must be the same on both sides. A tire wants to roll in the direction it's leaning. Those two forces must be equal for the car to go straight when you let go of the steering wheel. Roads lean to the right so water will run off. We call that "road crown". That by itself will cause cars to drift to the right, so it is customary to set left camber a little more positive than the right to offset road crown, but rarely more than 0.10 degree.

The specs for this car call for -0.70 degrees, plus or minus 0.50 degrees. This alignment computer is set up to read the specs differently because for some car models, the preferred setting is not exactly in the middle of the acceptable range. Also, you'll notice all the numbers I'm typing go to two places after the decimal point. All alignment computers can be set to read to one or to two decimal places. I always set mine to read to two places because that provides a lot more accuracy which is necessary with small lightweight cars. Mechanics who settle for one decimal place do that because it's faster to get those adjustments "good enough". Fortunately, the very nice owner of the new-car dealership I worked for never once complained that I worked too slowly. We both preferred satisfied customers over speed.

Negative 0.70 degrees means the wheels are tipped in on top a significant amount. If you could imagine a wheel laying on its side on the road surface, that would be 90.00 degrees. In comparison, less than negative 1.00 degree doesn't sound like a lot, but it will improve high-speed cornering a little at the expense of greatly accelerated tire wear. Sometimes unusual camber angles are specified to cause an angle change to the spindle, so it moves where the weight of the car is supported on the wheel bearing. That sounds confusing, but it just means smaller wheel bearings can carry the same load with less stress. We don't always get to know why the engineers want the specs they do.

This car came in with -1.2 degrees on the left which would make that tire pull hard to the right. The right wheel had -1.8 degrees, also leaning in on top, so it would have been pulling even harder to the left. "Cross-camber" is not shown on this printout so we have to calculate it in our heads. That is the difference, side-to-side in those two camber readings. In this case, the right tire is pulling 0.6 degrees harder to the left than the left tire is pulling to the right. 0.6 degrees is a real lot and can result in tired arms after driving a while at highway speed. But remember, the engineers at VW haven't seen the need to make camber adjustable for at least the last 45 years. As an alignment specialist, I used to see this all the time, and it frustrated me that there was no way to fix it for my customers.

Mismatched camber can be affected by weak springs and the subsequent unequal ride height, but camber doesn't actually change that much just from tipping the car's body to one side. What interests me more on this car is the "after" readings. We know the mechanic couldn't change camber, yet it ended up with both wheels being tipped to the left 0.1 degree more than when he started. This is where the one decimal place is the likely factor. When the computer rounds off the numbers to a single decimal place, an actual difference of just 0.02 degrees, (practically nothing), could be rounded to the next higher or next lower tenth of a degree. That little bit of change can come from tugging on the car's other adjustments, and that tugging settles the suspension a little. Sticking turntables the tires are sitting on, opening and slamming a door, and dozens of other insignificant things will make those number change a little. So while those different final numbers can be explained away, it can't be overlooked that it shows 0.8 degrees camber pull to the left. I'd be very surprised if that car goes straight down the road without the driver constantly pulling the steering wheel back.

I'd be very hesitant to blame this on a crash in a parking lot. To bend suspension parts would require a solid hit on one side, and the tire on the other side would have to be pushed into an immovable object like a curb. If that were to happen, with a hit to the left side that pushed the car to the right, that would collapse the right suspension arms and cause that wheel to tip to the right on top. This car has the opposite. What it needs is a good kick to the right to fix the camber difference, so that crash should have made this car better.

All of this story so far assumes no parts had to be replaced. If a new control arm was installed, the person paying for it should have a right to keep it and take it to a different shop for a visual inspection. I wouldn't share any details at first about why you're there with the part in your hand so as to not unfairly sway anyone's opinion.

"Caster" is harder to explain. Look at the fork of a bicycle and how it angles toward the rear at the top. For most front-wheel-drive cars, this would be the angle of the strut where it tilts rearward on top. That's positive caster and it's what has been used since the 1960s. Negative caster makes steering even big heavy trucks fairly easy, but it causes excessive wander. Steering had to be constantly corrected at highway speeds. By the mid '60s, we were driving faster on highways, and that wander became very irritating. Positive caster took care of that, but it made turning the steering wheel a lot harder. That is the reason we added power steering.

On older rear-wheel-drive cars, a difference in caster side-to-side had about half the effect on pulling to one side that camber had. Instead of offsetting road crown with a 0.10 degree camber pull to the left, we could do the same thing instead with a 0.20 degree caster pull to the left. The clinker here is for some reason, caster has almost no affect on pulling on front-wheel-drive cars. As such, it is very hard to find any car model that has adjustable caster, and there is no need for that adjustment. I even had one car with a huge 3.00 degree difference in caster, and it went straight down the road.

Caster is what allows you to ride a bicycle no-handed. Your weight makes the front wheel squirt out straight ahead and want to stay there. On cars, the wheel is offset from the parts that hold it in place. The result is positive caster makes the left wheel want to turn to the right so hard you couldn't pull it back by hand. The right wheel wants to pull to the left, hopefully equally as hard. It's when they're connected with the steering linkage that the two forces offset each other, and the car goes straight.

My only comment of value here is just about all cars call for around 3.00 degrees of caster. A few models need more to provide the directional stability that was lost in some other part of the car's design. Mercedes is another one that can call for up to 11.00 degrees. A lot of alignment specialists won't even believe that until they see it in the service manual. It's just too far out of what we know to be normal.

This car calls for 7.6 degrees and it shows both sides are in specs. If no suspension parts were replaced before this alignment was performed, these caster readings would strongly suggest nothing was bent or damaged by an impact.

To finish up this part of my great and wondrous story, "toe" is simply the direction the wheels are steering. It is always the last thing to be adjusted after everything else is done. Basically, the steering wheel is locked perfectly straight and centered, then each front wheel is adjusted to match that. "Total toe" looks at both wheels together. The reason toe is set last is it is affected to some degree by every other adjustment or change. This printout shows total toe started at 1/16", meaning the fronts of the wheels are 1/16" closer together than the rears, and it was the same when it went out of the shop. Two suspension parts are rarely exactly the same, hence the need for alignment adjustments. If parts were replaced on this car, it is highly unlikely total toe would have been a perfect 1/16" without making any adjustments.

By the way, we set the front of the wheels closer together, (toe-in), then braking and road forces will tug them back a little to make the tires perfectly parallel to each other under most driving conditions. Total toe has the second biggest effect on bad tire wear, after camber.

For every car and truck, the caster angle is a product of the orientation of the upper and lower steering pivots, as viewed from the side of the car. To say that more clearly, on older models those pivot points are the upper and lower ball joints. Those are what allows the steering system to turn. Caster, camber, and toe are the three main angles every alignment specialist looks at, but there's one more secondary angle that is almost always overlooked, except when checking for crash damage. That is "steering axis inclination", (SAI). All alignment computers measure this automatically one time at the very start of the alignment. It is not measured again unless done manually by the mechanic, and that is only done if he purposely does something to change it. While caster looks at the tilt of the steering pivots from the side of the car, in this case the lower ball joint and the upper strut mount, SAI looks at those same two pivots from in front of the car. All struts tilt in on top toward the center of the car. That is the SAI angle. No spec is ever given for SAI. All that is required is it must be the same on both side, within 0.20 degrees.

The typical SAI readings are in the area of 28 to 32 degrees. The exact numbers are not important as long as they're the same. This car has only 15.0 degrees which got my attention. They might have had to stand the struts up straighter to make more room for the engine. As the strut is stood up straighter, it provides a more direct path for road shock to be transmitted into the body where the driver feels it as "sporty" road feel.

SAI is usually only unequal when there is unrepaired crash damage, except for most GM front-wheel-drive cars. If the mechanic doesn't know what to watch out for, he can make SAI unequal after disassembling the car to remove the engine or transmission. Most other cars are designed in such a way this mistake can't be done. The fix is rather easy to perform but the car has to be on the alignment rack to watch the SAI readings as they are corrected. I'm mentioning this mainly for owners of other cars who might read this when researching their car's problem. When SAI is not set correctly on a GM front-wheel-drive car, all "predictability" is lost. The car will veer off to one side or the other when running over the smallest of bumps in the road. One time it might dart to the right unexpectedly, the next time it might go perfectly straight over a railroad crossing. You definitely will not want to drive the car like that. For people with these cars, all that is needed is to mark the orientation of the cross member before it is unbolted from the body, then it can be reinstalled the same way. Simple solution to avoid a really miserable problem.

For this car, SAI difference is 0.2 degrees, just within the limits. If no suspension parts were replaced, these are the two numbers that strongly suggest nothing in the suspension system was damaged.

Please remember I haven't seen the damage, and I have no way of knowing the mechanic's experience and how conscientious he is. I do know some unscrupulous car owners will try to get all their car's problems fixed by blaming them on just such an incident, but I've also run into people who genuinely didn't think those problems existed before the crash. I'm not fond of Volkswagens, along with most mechanics in my city, so I have to put more effort into providing an unbiased opinion. This story should help you understand the things we look at when determining causes of damage. At the mileage you listed, suspension parts failures are about to start appearing on their own, but can easily go unnoticed until something else results in someone performing an inspection. That's why we can't always say a worn part was caused by a crash or by normal wear and tear.

I agree the numbers on the printout look good, ... I mean, "in specs". That's why I asked if a part had been replaced. If a part has to be replaced, that is always done before the car is placed on the alignment hoist. The new part will force the wheel / tire back to where it is supposed to be, and that is why, if you're lucky, little will have to be adjusted during the alignment.

With this car, and caster and camber being non-adjustable, it stands to reason the "Before" and "After" readings would be the same since we're unable to change anything. Here they call them "Initial" and "Final". Those just mean what the car started with after parts were replaced but no adjustments were done yet, and what the settings were when the alignment was completed. The only point of interest for most customers is I always highlighted the "Before" adjustments that I changed so the customer could see what I did for them, then I could explain what that helped or solved later. I always kept a copy of the printout for future reference, and I put one on the passenger's front seat.

I should have been more clear when I said "this car was a mess". What I meant was the engineers have decided to set the alignment angles to settings that solve some problem or accentuate some desirable handling characteristic, but that always has a trade-off. In this case it is going to be miserable tire wear on the inner edges of both front tires. I mentioned that a half degree of camber is about the most you want. More than that starts to show up with that edge wear. Here they're calling for -1.80 degrees. That is a real lot, tipped in on top. 1980's Ford-built Escorts called for 2 7/16 degrees positive, tipped out on top of their front tires, and of course, no adjustment was provided. It was real easy to see something was wrong when you passed these cars on the highway. The aftermarket industry came up with a number of solutions to fix that, but ultimately, none of them worked out. Those were the cars that chewed up tires in 15,000 miles. The rear wheels were tipped in on top a real lot, but we could stand those up straighter with aftermarket repair kits. Those four tires were tipped so badly, the cars looked like a new-born horse wobbling when trying to stand up. This VWs -1.80 degrees is one of the worst I've seen since those '80s Escorts, but since the angles are in the specs specified, there's nothing more we can do except to say, "the alignment looks good".

I had to think about this a while. Without seeing the car myself or what it might have gotten shoved into, I find it hard to believe a suspension part could be damaged that easily. I'd be embarrassed to be a car salesman selling something built that flimsy.

The more glaring comment has to do with a problem developing months later. That is not an acceptable comment when it comes to steering and suspension parts. A part is worn to the point of needing replacement or it is not. A part is bent or it is not. You can say poor tire wear is going to show up in six months, but that would be due to a part that is bad right now. Given the specs, as I said already, bad tire wear is to be expected, but that is due to what the engineers designed in. By everyone's observation, all of the alignment numbers are in specs, so what does anyone hope to improve by replacing something?

The lower control arm for this model is stamped steel, and rather beefy. It's going to take more than sliding across the parking lot to bend it. The lower ball joint handles side impact all the time from normal driving and cornering. I'd expect to see sideways play / wear at this mileage on a Ford product, but typically not on any other car brands. One side impact, even if the tire slid into a curb or parking block, is not going to cause that sideways play on its own. At the very worst, if an inspection shows sideways movement in that ball joint, that had to have started occurring on its own long before being bumped in the parking lot. That would be a case of "we see the wear developing and getting worse, and we have an opportunity to blame it on someone else and get them to pay for it". Some people will honestly think the parking lot damage caused this, but there are plenty of people out there who will blame everything that goes wrong from now to eternity on this event.