blackout

brief back story- i just replaced the front struts on my 97 m3 this past weekend, and dropped it off at a local meineke to have it aligned. i get a call about an hour later, the guy telling me in no uncertain terms that he can't do anything with the alignment, recommending to take it to a body shop to see if there's any frame/severe suspension damage because the caster is nearly 5 degrees different from one wheel to the other (iirc, it was 7.3 degrees left, 2.7 degrees right), and (according to him) the caster is not adjustable on my car from the factory. i still have yet to research this... toe was disastrous as well, but the guy only charged me $40 for an 'alignment check' as opposed to the $150 4 wheel alignment, so they didn't try to adjust it because the caster setting would fuck the toe all up when it was repaired anyway.

so now i'm like wtf. i just decided recently to go ahead and keep this car after being on the fence of selling/trading it in for the past couple years, and dumped roughly $3500 on paint/bodywork/parts to make it into something i'll enjoy for the next few years until i get a house and an s5, and now i'm faced with the possibility i've been driving it around for the past 3.5 years with a twisted frame? even though i consider it much more likely that a control arm or something is bent... and it was just previously aligned around the bent strut i just replaced (without knowing it was bent), which is now throwing the caster way off because the strut is straight now.

anyway, i called my insurance agent after i picked the car up to ask him if i could put a claim in even though i wasn't involved in an accident... and left a message, it was almost 6 pm. my theory being that the accident happened when i bought it... but all joking aside, has anyone heard/run into a similar situation? could this be submitted as an insurance claim even though it happened before i even bought the car? if the frame is in fact bent, it will very likely be totaled because it's only worth about $4k according to most blue books (even though you couldn't buy one for even close to that WITHOUT a bent frame ), and that's not even close to what i've got in this car, what are the options for buying it back once it's been totaled?

if i can't submit it as a claim, does anyone have any idea what a worst case scenario repair would cost for a bent frame? i wouldn't think it would even be considered safe if this were the case...

btw, it has a clean carfax and i've never hit anything with it. it rode perfectly straight before i replaced the struts, but i did notice the right front tire would occasionally rub the fenderwell on left turns. i attributed this to a loose brake duct in the bumper and blown front struts...

Turbo_Dreams

might be a dumb question but are you sure you put the struts in correctly? Also i don't think an insurance company will let you file a claim if you cant prove that something happened to the car, no accident report or anything of that nature. For all they know ti could have come from the factory like that...

STi_FTMFW

That's what I'm thinking.

blackout

This actually is not a dumb question as I was wondering if u could have fucked anything up, and ill have to double check if the upper strut mount is in fact facing the wrong direction. I was in a hurry and could have overlooked this, as the three threads could possibly fit properly with the mount facing the wrong way... BUT the wheel rubbed before the installation as well. I'd love to chalk this up to my fuckup, I would save money.

Turbo_Dreams

was the car lowered at all? I know on my 99 m3 i would get a little bit of a rub on the right side after i replaced the oe struts/springs

Fabrik8

It's possible the previous owner hit a curb or something like that. It wouldn't necessarily be from accident damage, which would definitely explain why nothing would show up on the carfax. But it would be wise to double check the installation, and get a second opinion from another shop maybe. I don't really know the specifics of that suspension, but it's possible that you may just have a bent control arm or something along those lines, and may not have any chassis damage at all.

blackout

arrows pointing in different directions on upper strut mounts = radically different caster.

thanks for helping me realize how much of an idiot i am. now i'm wondering if it's been like this since before i replaced them...

Fabrik8

So everything is within spec now?

blackout

no... i still have to get it aligned, but the upper strut mounts are both facing the right direction now. i'm pretty convinced that would be enough to throw the caster off 5 degrees... factory setting is ~9, so if they're both even close to that i'm happy.

i'm kind of upset at the power of suggestion the meineke service writer had over me... i was damn convinced i had a totaled car on my hands and ignored the obvious fact that i hastily threw the strut assemblies back on the car. occam's razor...

Axelerate

Yeah, I wouldn't get anything aligned there again. He should of figured that out.