Ownership Verified: Hardcore Sellin’ Out – gaasc’s 2013 Corolla

Still it's better on the wallet than the constant suspension rebuilds...marginally.
constant suspension rebuilds
constant suspension rebuilds
constant suspension rebuilds

CONTROL ARMS! They...hold the wheel I think...they also do...something that means that the wheels are pointing in the right directions....

I will be honest with you, as much as I like to vainglory myself on the fact that I have a rough idea on how everything on my car works, the inner workings of suspension components are arcane and strange to me. A weird and dangerous zone in which things degrade and pounds of metal and rubber are tortured daily just so that I can enjoy a quality ride and where one bump too many means I will careen off a cliff on three wheels. The Corolla has two control arms, and them being relatively new and me no longer having to dig for obscure shit that Toyota stopped building in the Bush II administration I expected smooth sailing, a replacement of components in a decade or when it hits 100k miles, Springs sag of course, but between slow mileage and higher average speeds, my suspension should not be taxed too much.

Imagine my surprise on a night on which a set of strange and terrible circumstances involving a coffee maker ended up with my old woman in the Corolla and leaving a mall just to panic, park at the side of the road, and tell us that the car is "jumping and with no steering."

This is what I was greeted with upon arrival. The steering wheel is pointing dead straight and was not moved between shots.

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My trusted mechanic came in with a torch, a hydraulic jack, and a willingness to trust a cheap O-Ring with his life. We moved the wheel all the way to the left, then all the way to the right, and heard a click.

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What you see here is a special treat for those on FinalGear with a predisposition towards metallurgy. Remember, this vehicle had a crash in that corner. And the enterprising compatriots that fixed it apparently decided that instead of getting a used control arm or something, they would heat the existing one and bend it back into shape. For everyone else on the room, heating and cooling a metal in this way means that it will no longer be tempered. At any glance, the metal will look and feel strong, but it is extremely brittle. Suspension components and brittleness are not good company.

Up on a towtruck, back to a shop, and then in for a closer inspection. Despite the horrible look of the image above, all that the car needed was new control arms (both, I'm not taking any chances), and new boots. Then we went with these new pieces to an alignment shop and received some good news and some bad news.

The bad news: the entire car is slightly bent, in a "only able to see it in a machine" way.
The good news: it should not affect anything, but they still thought I should know.

And so all is back and well in Corolla-land...until today, when we discovered something is rubbing when I go downhill and brake and causing same corner's wheel to rub and make distressing sounds. Also, the other thing they made me notice was that the right wheel is about two inches closer to the rear of the wheelarch than the left wheel.

...This is fine, this is all fine...

Narrator: gaasc, twenty-eight, a gentle man, a man in search for a quiet and inoffensive commuter pod to compliment his garage. He ponders the reasons why ordinary men are driven to have these as their only vehicle, finding the lack of variety a torment. What he does not know is that the groundwork has already been laid for his own special kind of madness and torment--found only in the Twilight Zone.
 
BATTERIES! The car battery, that thing that nobody thinks about until one day they come out of their house to find their car is a potato which makes a clickly noise when you attempt to start it.

The correct order of operation here is to ignore the weak sounding starter on a Sunday afternoon when you have the time and energy to get it sorted. It's more fun to deal with a dead car at 6:30 on a Monday morning when you have a school run to do.
 
Or just do like I did and ignore the starter struggling for a couple months, because "I don't have time right now" to have it die right in front of my garage.
So, yay me?(No, not really. Stupid lucky me.)
 
An update on the suspension situation.

The control arms were replaced. This fixed the problem. And once that was done it was taken in for an alignment. The alignment worked great, until I was driving downhill and braked to discover a horrible rubbing sound emanated from the front right wheelwell (I am quite poor at pinpointing the source, but it seemed like a good educated guess)

Looking underneath revealed nothing obviously bad until we noticed that the passenger side wheel was now noticeably further back on the wheelarch than the driver-side one. So back to NAPA it went for a checkup.

Lifting it revealed a perhaps more mechanical version of the bible passage "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse.". The CV axle was now very slightly U-shaped, which explained the rubbing at specific loads., worse still, it appears that a bolt which held the strut to the steering knuckle was missing. Not sheared or anything, just...gone.

So, after that diagnosis and an assurance that the guys who did my alignment will be (figuratively) flayed for not giving me a little paper with the spec that the car had been left in on the previous alignment, it went back to my mechanic. who took a look at it with the car on the ground and noticed the strut itself now kinda bends backwards on a seam under load, increasing the damage. The new control arms themselves are fine.

We seem to be getting a much clearer picture of the craftsmanship employed by my fellow compatriots who fixed this car. apparently they didn't just heat and bend the control arms into place. they basically moved everything until it fitted well enough to pass mechanical scrutiny. And would continue to do so until, say, something broke because apparently they never saw that history channel show about sword-making and metallurgy.

So some decent Tokico struts are going in along with a new CV axle. ("Look... why take a chance? At least, that's the way I feel about it. ") I trust this will be the last bit of acquaintance I have to do with this people's work, who closed shop due to COVID.

Wait no, the cable to open the trunk from the cabin snapped. Trusted a bit too early :p
 
"Toyotas are very reliable"


South Central American people: "Hold my Barena."
 
You know one day I should try and buy a car that has not had a massive punt before my ownership...or at least, buy it punted and have my people repair it.
 
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Oh look, it is the meme number.
 
So is there any talk of putting this thing on a frame machine and seeing how far out it all is or would you prefer to be blissfully unaware?

Why don’t you kick his dog, too? :p /s
 
So is there any talk of putting this thing on a frame machine and seeing how far out it all is or would you prefer to be blissfully unaware?

If it were a Toyota Corona I bet it would be pronounced "corner" by now...
 
Why don’t you kick his dog, too? :p /s

I'm trying to be helpful. Stress the trying. I know it would be an expense, but it's the way it should have been done in the first place, then things like he's been experiencing wouldn't be happening.

If it were a Toyota Corona I bet it would be pronounced "corner" by now...

Maybe if you are from Bastan...
 
So is there any talk of putting this thing on a frame machine and seeing how far out it all is or would you prefer to be blissfully unaware?
It is the party's official position that the vehicle is acceptably straight. The people who did the alignment as well as an independent mechanic noted that the vehicle itself was bent in such a way so as to not be noticeable in daily use and would be able to keep spec and alignment if all the damaged suspension components are replaced with quality components. These components would also wear down normally, with no accelerated wear caused by the repaired damage.

-Statement from the Honduran party for drivability and safety.
 
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It is the party's official position that the vehicle is acceptably straight. The people who did the alignment as well as an independent mechanic noted that the vehicle itself was bent in such a way so as to not be noticeable in daily use and would be able to keep spec and alignment if all the damaged suspension components are replaced with quality components. These components would also wear down normally, with no accelerated wear caused by the repaired damage.

-Statement from the Honduran party for drivability and safety.

While the H.P.D.S. may have final authority on such matters, the Federation of Underlying Concern and Korrection (F.U.C.K.) does believe it would be in best interest of the affected vehicle (and it's associated parties) to be tested further.

-
Signed:
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Oh well, since you must know, since we were down there and doing work, we took a look. it seems there's about a half inch of the front subframe in that corner that wasn't straightened. not even improperly Which I guess accounts for the "very tiny" bend discovered by the alignment people.

I will see if my body guy owes me a favor that large. it's a good thing they didn't touch it at all if that was the case.
 
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This thread is a BIG OOF. You should ship it off to Arthur Tussik, he'll get it sorted in no time.
As I said, we are all Arthur Tussik in this blessed country. The government finally keeled a couple of years ago and removed the age restriction on importing cars. Should I not export myself from here, I am thinking I can import something sensible, not crashed and cheap to buy, run and maintain. Very discreet

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The thought occurs to me that I never did upload a pic of the damage to the front end pre-arrival

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This is about a 6 on the Tussik scale, being honest.
 
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