ok nailed a pot hole last night, didnt realize i had bent the wheel til this morning while i was driving down the highway due to the steering wheel shaking and vibrating like crazy. for now i put the bent wheel on the back and rotated that back wheel up front. had the balance of the other wheels and tires checked just to make sure they were still balanced. still the steering wheel shakes and vibrates. could that be from the bent wheel on the back, or could it be i might have knocked the front end out of alignment? to give u an idea how big this pothole was, the edge of the hole scratched the side skirt on my xb which isnt lowered. i have 17" wheels with a 205/40 tire on it. what do u guys think? thanks



mike

 

Sounds like you hit a sink hole like we have here in Florida. Anyway, asked my husband for you and he said that it is likely a bent hub. He is an ASE master tech with over 20 years experience so you might want to look into it. The alignment is likely going to need to be checked after you fix the damaged part.
Good luck with your box, and watch out for those holes.

 

get an alignment. sounds like you knocked something out.

 

should i wait til i get my new wheel b4 i do the alignment? or isnt that goin to matter to much?

 

i wouldn't drive the car until you get the new wheel. that would be the logical thing to do. definately get the new wheel first and then do a 4 wheel alignment, balance and rotation.

 

im gonna put my stockers back on 2nite to see what happens with those on. cuz since i put my new ones on, i have had a slight steering wheel vibs but nothing like it is now. but today on my drive to work, it seemed like the car pulls to the right some. so hopefully its nothng bad, hoepfully its just the alignment.


mike

 

I'm not that far away from you Mike and the roads out this way are hell. That's one of the reasons I haven't gotten 17's yet, I'm still running stock alloys.

Get the front end checked from your Toyota dealer asap. A hole that big could've caused more damage than you can see or feel.

Keith

 

im takin it in tomorrow morning. im all sorts of paranoid that im gonna get bad news. but i will see

 

Good luck Mike! I take mine in for its 30,000 mile service on Tuesday and the bill is going to by 429.00 OMG. That's because the dealer recommends a tranny and collant service, which I agree with. But yikes the cost!

Let us know what happens
Keith

 

Off topic, sorry..... but what exactly do they do with the tranny / coolant service? Do they just check and top off or do the flush out and put in new juice?

 

I gave you professional opinion to try to help you out.

So, believe all the non-technicians who know it all on this site and get an alignment and good luck fixing car.

 

If you had a shop check the balance on the other three tires/wheels why didn't they inspect the suspension out at that time? If something else was damaged they should have been able to show you right then and there.

 

coolant is good for 150,000 miles...don't touch it (its the long life pink toyota fluid)
the tranny and brake fluids i would have flushed...the two biggest over looked fluids...

if the wheel up front bent, whats to say the wheel in back (should have hit the same hole...) is not bent too....or might have lost a weight....

an alignment out of whack would pull to one side or the other, not shake...(most cases)
a bent hub would cause a shake, but anything stong enough to bend the hub would have crippled the car more than a bent rim...

get the car checked out...rebalance all tires...get a new rim....do an alignment after the new rim is on there...

.02

 

shakes are due to bent hubs or wheels that are out of balance. if the car pulls to one side or the other then its an alignment problem.

but then again, I'm not an expert or a certified Scion tech, and would check all of my wheels to make sure they were still round, balanced, and then got an alignment.

 

My faith restored!


I know I'm just a woman and I don't work on cars much ( I did install a 4 BBL carb on my old Camaro myself) but I read these posts to my husband before I answer them. So I'm giving you the advice of a 42 year old auto tech who has over 10 years of asian import experience.

Sorry! when someone tells people to get an alignment like it is a fix all for everyting it really erks me.

 

It shouldn't matter what sex someone is when they give a response.

Some seem to think they are self-proclaimed experts because they sit behind a screen and keyboard. I was told I was not an expert, by one of these so called experts, yet I had to tell this expert how to install a frame brace!

This "expert" is around 26 or so, so that means I've been wrenching on cars since he was 2! And they were Formula Fords I was wrenching on, not street cars. I'm 40 now.

 

i just put 17s on my box and i notice at higher speeds my steering wheel shakes... more then it used to with stocks on it...

 

Sounds like you didn't have concentric hub rings installed.

 

squirrel... can you explain a bit? i bought them from someone here on sl... i threw them on myself... what are these hubcentric hub rings you speak of?

 

and as everyone has noticed i have hastily posted to squirrel's reply, i check em out and they seem awesome.. just gotta figure out what size i should get and how quick i can get em here...

thanks guys