threepwood

Hi guys,
besides my "new member" message this is my very first post here and i want to start with something that is worrying me a little bit.
A few days after i bought the car (used) i've discovered that the previous owner wrecked it in an accident. Long story short i believed i smashed his front left tire into a curb. The reason because i say that is because the front bumper hasn't been changed but only shows damages to the lower grill (driver side) and to the driver side lower plastic lip. Beyond this cosmetic problem the driver side tire is one finger closer to the door.

A first tought went to a bent control arm, so the first thing i did was to order a new one and put it right in.
I finished to install it 30 minutes ago and to my big surprise the tire is exactly where it was with the old control arm.

So now i'm concerned because i really believe that it may be like the frame underneath the car (looks like a crossmember to me). Can you guys tell me something more about it? What do you suggest me? Is it something i can fix by myself or i need a mechanic? Or a body shop?

Thank you.

JimC

From that picture your fender is mis-aligned. You can also see where the door has hit the fender line. The front fascia is also off - look at the fit line under the headlight. Looks like the car has been in an accident. Open the hood and check the fender line under the hood and the radiator support as well to see if it is off line.

threepwood

Hi Jim, thank you for your reply.
You are correct, the fender is out of alignment, but i'm afraid my problem is not related to just a cosmetic thing.
Infact the car pulls on the right.

Right after i changed the control arm i started to see if i could realign the fender myself but it seems it doesn't go further than that.
Under the hood there is a hole in the fender (see attached picture) that i guess it is used in the assembly line to easly align the fender to the rest of the car. I tried too align the two holes (they were not) but didn't change that much. The difference between the hood and the fender is a little less than 1/4". I guess it is the same difference between the top part of the fender and the door (the lower part of the fender seems legitimately distanced.

Now as i said besides the fender being not properly aligned is that the tire looks too far back (closer to the door), compared to the tire of the passenger side which looks pretty much in the middle.

Even if the fender is pushed on the back the wheel should look too close to the front part of the fender, in my case it is the opposite.

threepwood

I also measured the distance between the center of the rear tire and the center of the front one, on both sides.
On the passenger side it is approx. 107", on the driver side it is approx. 106".
So i have about 1" of difference between the two sides, making it not just an optical illusion. And 1" is A LOT.

88 orangepeel notch

I'd think a decent body shop would have a frame machine, they'll let you know for sure. But it doesn't look good for being a cheap fix.

Did you buy this car knowing the damage was there ?

threepwood

Clearly i never noticed it.
When i drove it home on the highway i felt the car pulling to the right and i thought that it was simply unaligned. It took me a while to realize what was going on.

I'll keep you posted on the updates. Thank you.