rim damage.. possibly more??
 

So i'm cruising around town having a blast in my z this moring and enjoying a great day with the car and 4 turns before i get home i overcorrected when powering through a corner that i normally screech through with ease...

Anyway, I ended up sliding into the curb, facing the wrong way. The drivers side front wheel went over the curb and slid about 2 feet but the rear stayed on the street. photos are of the subsequent damage on both wheels attached for your viewing pleasure. The front is worse than the rear.

The car still handles normally and tracks straight, but i get a resonating audible noise now from the front left at about 50mph and up. It could be simply the front drivers side tire being out of balance (it's missing a couple of the counter weights). or could this be something more serious??? :(

also, i previously had the same ratte/clunking noise in the 6M transmission between 1st gear, neutral, and 2nd gear that has been noted on other threads here.. it wasnt all that bad before, but it is more pronounced since my little incident.

1. I'm a douche and sick to my stomach for trashing my month old dream car.
2. Are the rims repairable? i have no clue.
3. Did i cause serious damage to my car and am too dumb to realize it?.. I'm verny concerned about this one due to the extra problems noted besides the rim damage.

Can any of you pros out there who know these cars in your sleep lend a noob some advice?

We have no way of knowing if there is more damage...you may have gotten lucky and theres no more damage, but chances are there is. Go get it looked at at the dealer...

make sure that there are no flaps hanging off the tire - inside and outside that could be causing the noise... Also take it to an alignment shop and have em look at it - not sure if the dealer can align these yet.

Shouldnt be driving crazy and that wouldnt happen :mad:

SHouldnt be balancing because you would be feeling vibrations too not just hearing noises. Bring it to a shop either way and have them look.

Have your alighnment checked out that way you'll know the full extent of the damage.
I had this happen to me in my 350z..and my suspension was bent slightly.

FYI..your insurance may cover the damage..but that would be crappy to go that route.

I only wish i could follow that advice. I considered for about half a second...but oh well :wtf2:

Things happen.. we've all done it.. and (hopefully) this is why you have insurance.

Stop driving it, get the car to the dealer, call your insurance company and suck it up. Get a solid evaluation, let them go through the car. The wheels are junk, what you're looking for is the major damage you won't/can't see from your evaluation.

You bought the car for the long term, don't half-*** the repair and leave yourself wondering or worse yet someone else in a lurch for purchasing your halfway repaired car when you're done with it.

Even if you're deductible is $1,000 your wheels alone might pick that up.. do things right, describe the accident however you want to the insurance company (sounds like no police report.. you have free reign), and get the car fixed to what it should be, so you can get back to enjoying the car.

:)

yeah if you go with insurance fix....you'll get new wheels and suspension components..undoubtly....Josh is right.

Looking again at the rim pictures.. it may not be that bad.. but cars these days are designed explicitly to absorb shock in every facet of their design, for the driver safety..

When you factor crumple zones, chassis designs, etc.. there isn't a real world way to tell.

Perhaps a dealer visit, and upon the news a call to the insurance company if the outlook is grim is a better recommendation..

thanks for the advice ZYUL8R. I tried not driving crazy too, but it's so much fun in this car!

I REALLY hope the suspension isnt bent but it is possible. i had slowed down considerably before hitting the curb so hopefully the damage wont be too bad. I was probably moving at less that 10 mph by the time i hit it.

Josh - thanks for the advice as well. i dont plan on doing a minimal repair as i want to keep this car for quite a while. fortunately my deductible is only $500 so i will probably end up going that route and getting it all fixed.

this car isn't my daily driver so i wont be driving it again until i can have it looked at. I did pull it up on ramps when i got home and looked uder the car. couldnt see any further damage other than heavy scratches under the bumper from the curb before it hit the wheel. of course, i'm no mechanic so i'll probably drop it off at the dealer after work today.

thanks again for the advice.

FORGET REPLACING THE WHEEL! Goto this site, look up your state, call these people. They do amazing work. Alloy Wheel Repair Specialists - Mobile Wheel Repair Services

I gotta side with Josh on this one. Long term investment = do the right thing. The last thing I want to see is a 370 (or any Z for that matter)... Civicized.

Civ - ic - ized


Noun.

1. To half-a$$ the body work on a vehicle so that misshapen, oversized, unfitted, unpainted body panels are attached.

2. Attaching a ridiculously large "fighter" style wing that is rendered useless as the vehicle is incabable of even reaching a speed in which such a wing would be of any benefit. Also see: Eyesore

3. The fitment of a resonated eBay coffee can to the rear section of the exhaust as to produce a "fart-cannon" effect that will cause the vehicle to actually lose power due to improper tube diameter and loss of backpressure.

4. Rolling through the "hood" with only two chrome aftermarket wheels on the front because you couldn't affort all four at once.

I think you might have gotten lucky and avoided any serious damage. Take it to an alignment shop and have them inspect the suspension for bent or damaged control arms and links and check the alignment. I once bent a control arm on my Maxima just by hitting a large pothole.

The wheels look repairable, take it to a wheel specialist that can check for hairline cracks and have it repaired and painted.

KillerBee - fear not, my Z will never be "civicized" while i own it. funny though... there is a car out in the parking lot right now that is aspiring to be just that. see photos.

Haha... it's well on it's way!

Chris - do you think an alignment shop is more likely to give me an unbiased diagnosis moreso than the dealer? it doesnt matter to me where i go, as long they give me an honest analysis. not having expierience with this sort of issue before i'm not sure who's best.

i'll look into getting the wheels repaired as you and Musashi have suggested, but to be honest, i could care less about the wheels. the resonating noise at speed and the additional manual transmission "clunk" noises between 1st, N, and 2nd are what REALLY worry me.

i just have this nasty feeling that i've done, in true dumbass fashion, some serious damage to my basically brand new dream car.

I live in Fairview and I think I have seen that car on the road before! dude got carried away with rattle-cans, lol.

Judging by the shape of the wheels, I'd say your tires probably took quite a bit of the force of the impact since they don't look too bad. I'd suggest a reputable alignment shop and tell them what happened, they will know what to look for and will be less likely to BS you than a dealership. Wheels can be repaired much cheaper than they can be bought new. Or use insurance to help cover the cost of some nice aftermarket wheels =)

You should have the dealer check the differential, you may have whacked the half shaft into it and knocked something out of alignment. Either that you are just hearing the same clutch clunk that everyone else gets.

I wouldn't necessarily trust an alignment shop anymore than the dealer unless it was someone you knew or trusted. The resonating noise is quite possibly a damaged belt on the tire, and the tire needs to be replaced. If it is transmission related then you are definitely going to want to make an insurance claim.

thanks for all the advice guys. i dropped the z off at the dealer tonight for an evaluation tomorrow.

will keep you posted on the damage

Please tell me you didn't drop it off at Nissan of McKinney?? If so, don't let them work on it after they give you the evaluation, take it down to Courtesy in Richardson, trust me.

just got the evaluation call from Nissan Mckinney. they said there is clearly a cracked ball joint. havent given them the go-ahead on replacing it though.

Caravanshaka - did you have a bad experience with Nissan Mckinney?

I live like 2 miles from them, so naturally that was where I brought my sentra spec-v for the master cylinder recall about a year ago. While it was there I got them to turn my rotors since the newer spec-V warps them quickly. They put my stock wheels back on and didn't put my wheel lock key back in my car, so when I went to have discount tire put on new tires at about 25k miles, I couldn't get the damn wheels off without the key.

Called the dealer, told them the situation and got them to agree to install my tires for me after work that day (was at discount during lunch, and was leaving the next morning on a trip and didn't want to be stuck on bald tires). Brought it there earlier than I planned at 4pm to give them enough time to finish by 6...ended up being there over 3 hours while they put tires on.

They come out at 10 after 6 and handed over the car and 2 of the tires were sitting under 20psi on them so I sent them back in. they had to break the tire loose again and re-seal them so I didn't get to leave until 7:30. This was back when it got dark at 7, so it was dark when I finally got to go home. I get home and in the garage and noticed that they F'd up my wheels. There were scratches on EVERY wheel around the same section of the wheel in a circular pattern. They either have a terrible tire mounting machine, or they had the janitor installing my tires.

Anyways, drove back there and had their general manager inspect the wheels so I could have someone there confirming the damage (their service dept was closed at 6, they had 1 guy stay and finish my tires til 7:30). Ended up having to leave my car there for 3 days while they sent the wheels out to a vendor to be refinished...

Courtesy has one of the best parts departments in the nation, and a fantastic service department, which is why I suggest them now. McKinney won't ever get to touch my Z (although I do anything outside of warranty work on my own).

Thanks for the explanation... i will most likely take the car to Courtesey nissan for the ball joint replacement. they're closer to my work place anyway.

if i see you cruising around town sometime i'll say hi.

btw, do you know if there are any z gaterhings in our area?

I think there was one last weekend that danboy was hosting at his shop in the arlington area. Other than that I don't know of any. there is going to be a car show in Allen on the 30th at the high school, supposedly "room for 500 cars" so it has potential to be big. I'll be heading there most likely.

Good luck with the ball joint replacement, hopefully that is all that is wrong (besides the wheels of course)!