well the story is i hit a patch of black ice and ran into the median bending my left front wheel into the fender…now most of that is fixed theres just the rear beam that needs to be replaced and the radius rod and everything should be back to normal…after inspecting it very closely with another mechanic i work with there doesnt seem to be any frame damage…however after all this crap, my hood now has no gap on the passenger side and has about a 1 cm gap on the drivers side…also theres a gap now under the passenger headlight…i tried adjusting the hood but nothing worked…does anyone have an idea of what might of happend??
Something similar happened to me but mine was backed up on by a truck and bent everything including what i think is the bumper mounts so this summer Im thinking of redoing the whole front end from bumper, mounts, lights and all that…
that would most likely be frame damage.
its pretty hard ot wreck in a unibody car and NOT get frame damage.
go hit a car at 5mph, youll bend somethin slightly.
your just guna need to go to a shop and ask them to line it up, most shops would be glad to do this for a few hundred bucks.
yeah even tho my wheels straight now…im going to pass by a shop that does that kind of work to see what they got to say about it…see if the frames bent to start off with and how badly and how much it will cost and stuff…but finally the tegs back on the road!!!
if there really isnt any frame damage, it could be your fender. if you figure out how the fender is held into place, there’s a weak spot towards the front. you can literally pull it out if you grab the under side of the front of the fender and pull. so maybe pulling that would pull your fender out and line up your hood. but of course, first check if your fender can just be adjusted out i general. im sure if you pull off your fender, you’ll see exactly what im talking about and you’ll figure it all out on your own
edit: if the shop doesnt find any frame damage, im damn sure you can figure it out on your own and with a little labor. dont go waste money on a shop. pulling it by hand wont be a ghetto fix either because it’s what the shop will also do unless they go an extra step and start welding shit to make it stronger which i doubt they’ll do because acura didnt make that part of the fender strong regardless
i only say theres prolly framedamage because im in collision service at vocational school in the afternoon, and with unibody cars(especially honda/acura for example) they are not designed to be hit and repaired, they are designed to crumple and trash, but save u. so they are sacrificing the car to save you.
i bumpped into a neon in my prelude a long time ago when i got my license at 6mph and it barely but bent my frame enough that by eye it looked fine, but stuff didnt line up.
hey
i got smoked this summer and i did get frame damange and then it was all fixed up i had same problem with headlights and i had about 1 cm diff on each side towards fender the part that was wrong with the fender was it was oem so ya that explains that cuz it didnt fit well but when i looked closer to my reinforcement i noticed it was slightly bent so that explained y the headlight was uneven
How much damage was done to your fender? Have you already replaced it or is it repairable? Pull your car up to a wall and see where the headlights hit. If the headlight with the gap is higher than your other one it may be tipping you off to a slightly bent rad support or appron. Open your hood and look all along the top of your rad support for indications of buckling/movement (cracked paint/sealer,small creases). The rad support should look the same all the way across so just check it for bends comparing left side to right side. Look where the fender bolts are and see if there are signs of the fender getting pushed out of alignment. Take a tape measure and a friend and cross measure the car . Go from the fender bolt closest to the windshield on the right side of the car to a common hole or bolt on the opposite side as close to the corner of the rad support as you can get (usually the outer headlight bolt). Make sure you are measuring from the center of the bolt/hole or you will not get an accurate measurement. If the fender bolt does not work out well than it is ok to use a common one on the strut tower. Repeat this for the other side. The measurments should be exactly the same. If they are different than something is out of square. The tollerance is 3mm so if its really really close than don’t worry about it. Hondas are a very “soft” car so with a little thinking you can probably fix it yourself. I am a Lv.2 Collision Apprentice so let me know how you make out and I will help however I can.
wow…thank god its not that bad haha!!..i have zero body damage it was only a sidewalk style median…i replaced the lower table, the rear crossmember, and the radius rod since they all bent someway…now my wheels pretty straight but you can tell theres still something weird about it. i compared gaps on each side with my fingers and it was still a little tighter then the other side…but tomorow on my supper break im going to put my car back on the lift to take more measurements…my hoods still crooked towards the passenger side tho:(
on friday im probably going to go see if there was any frame damage…hope it doesnt cost to much
When we get cars that have damage like yours they automatically get new suspension assemblies in the effected areas that include control arms, struts and steering knuckle. It’s possible if you have not relpaced those then that could be the problem with your steering wheel. How did the steering rack make out? Did your car pass alignment? Its tough to help not seeing the car and the damage to it but if the damage is how you say I wouldn’t think that you have anything to worry about fram wise. Your suspension is designed to give out before the frame of the car to avoid this. I have seen lower control arms move crossmembers and once on a brand new honda pilot I had to replace its engine cradle because the control arm bent its mounts but never seen frame damage due to that.
i havnt aligned it yet since i dont have time at work…also i dont do alignments so i dont know how the whole thing works…but i think my upper table bent maybe causing the last of the problems…either way i was going to get some adjustable camber ones so i guess the times now…only im not sure which ones to get…the skunk2’s were working for ppl but now it seems they have issues with them hitting the inner fender