Help! Recently in a front end collision

[1qwkM52roadster]

Hey all, first time poster but explorer owner since 1995. Earlier this morning my car slid off the road to the right a bit and a plowed into a snow embankment. Unfortunately now my car pulls considerably to the right while driving. It does not make any noises, the performance seems un-effected, and the only visible damage is a rather nasty gash in my front right rim (point of impact).

I was wondering if anyone had any insight or ideas as to what may be causing my car to pull the the right while driving. I have an appointment at ford tomorrow and am praying it is something simple but fear the worst. Any help or speculation would be greatly appreciated. Attached are some photos. Thank you again, Robert.

Right Side:

Left Side(just for comparison):

PS this is my family car and has a solid 170,x.. miles on it and has always been very well maintained.

 

[College Student]

The car pulling sounds like it could now have an alignment issue. If you stand 20 feet in front of the car and look at the wheels do they look like /\ or \/ or more likely |/or this \|.

 

[1qwkM52roadster]

Looking forward at the car the wheels look like this : / |

 

[College Student]

The angledness of the front tire is what makes it pull to the left. The way to correct this would be to go to whichever shop in your town will do an alignment job. As till then to compensate you will need to rotate the steering wheel a little to the right or left in order to make the wheels a v shape/\ this will make the force applied pulling it in either direction more even and will try to pull the wheel from you hands less.

 

[1qwkM52roadster]

Thank you very much, that is such a relief to hear it's likely just the alignment. I'm in connecticut where the snow has been really bad so if it was going to happen at least the damage was minimal and no one was injured.

*If anyone has any further input or suggestions it would be appreciated

 

[Exproblems]

Hey all, first time poster but explorer owner since 1995. Earlier this morning my car slid off the road to the right a bit and a plowed into a snow embankment. Unfortunately now my car pulls considerably to the right while driving. It does not make any noises, the performance seems un-effected, and the only visible damage is a rather nasty gash in my front right rim (point of impact).

I was wondering if anyone had any insight or ideas as to what may be causing my car to pull the the right while driving. I have an appointment at ford tomorrow and am praying it is something simple but fear the worst. Any help or speculation would be greatly appreciated. Attached are some photos. Thank you again, Robert.

d.

After the impact with the snowy embankment that must have been hiding something solid like a curb (rim damage etc), was your steering wheel out of align on the steering column besides the car pulling to the right? If the steering column is now out of alignment as well, you probably "spun the steering gear box" and will need a wheel alignment as long as nothing else was damaged. I had a similar thing happen to me on a snowy/icy road a few years back with another vehicle I owned where I slid into a curb on a sharp turn and my front passenger side rim took the brunt of the impact. Right after that, my steering wheel was way out of whack in it's alignment. I told the mechanic I took it to for an alignment about what happened and he said I "spun the steering gear box" on the impact with the curb. I had to replace the rim as well because the lip of the rim broke off similar to yours, even though the tire never lost air pressure. The rim just didn't look safe to use after that.

 

[xlt03]

Have them look at the lower control arm also. It could be bent. Had a car run me off the road and I jumped the curb. Like you steering wheel off centered and broken lip of rim. final fix was new rim, new lower control arm and alignment.