What bends when you fender bender a 02 Impreza?

Hit on right front by another car, not very hard/fast. Below alignment was after throwing a tie rod on that corner(both ends) that it already needed, it was slightly bent.

Nothing looked blatantly out of whack when we put the tie rod on it. I didn't think to look at the ball joint end of the control arm, maybe that since it thins out there (stud points down), or the ball joint itself? Car has STI inverted struts so I doubt bent strut. Anything else to look at? We'd rather find the problem than put a second camber bolt in it.

Only two items controlling camber are the LCA and hub. If it was hit in the wheel, I'd look at the hub.

I'd look at the mount point for the inner end of the LCA,too. There's less caster on that side which may indicate that the rear anchor point for the LCA has moved inward.

LCA is usually the first thing that bends. If the wheel gets hit high it may be the strut. Knuckle is usually much stronger than the other two.

If its not visibly bent you're stuck with logic and throwing parts at it. As others have said, I'd do the lower control arm first. If it was hit in the wheel, Expect to need a wheel bearing in that corner so hold off on the knuckle until after the LCA. Control arm mount points on the subframe are typically pretty strong and will bend last.

Dietcoke wrote: Only two items controlling camber are the LCA and hub. If it was hit in the wheel, I'd look at the hub.

That, and you know the chassis that it mounts too.

If the chassis is tweaked then of course you'll get bad alignment r44esults. The subframe might have shifted, the camber shifting neg on one side and pos on the other sort of points to that. Just a possible guess, it'd be more definitive if there was a pre-accident alignment sheet.

If you aren't autoxing or tracking this car Id probably shift the subframe in a way to even out the camber like preaccident and if that doesn't do it check for bent parts VERY throughly. Then pending nothing bent, just put in a camber bolt and call it a day.

-Hunter certified alignment tech

I'm going to go with steering knuckle, mostly because the caster isn't off to far, but camber is. Control arms (generally) will often bend more on the rear leg, which moves the wheel back and in, not just in.

Knuckle is hard to see bends. Measure the distance between the inside sidewall of the tire and the strut tube. If the wheel with positive camber is farther away from the tube, that is a reasonably good sign.

Its also quite possible several things are bent a bit, or I'm full of E36 M3.

I'm liking the shifted subframe hypothesis the most, that should be pretty easy to see at the bolt heads and mount points, as I'd guess this didn't tweak the actual chassis, just took up the slop all the way one way, (these cars are supposedly very stiff because rally).

It's about due for a wheel bearing in that corner anyway, so the knuckle area will be inspected closely, though these cars have short, beefy, and probably forged knuckles. I'm still thinking that end of the control arm, as I said, it thins out there where the upside down ball joint's stud passes through.

Here's some shots of the damage. I'll try to get the previous alignment sheet.

Dietcoke wrote: Only two items controlling camber are the LCA and hub. If it was hit in the wheel, I'd look at the hub.

Having helped a buddy with this exact scenario (10 years ago,) we discovered that the strut itself bent between where it bolts to the knuckle and the spring perch.

Tyler H wrote:

Dietcoke wrote: Only two items controlling camber are the LCA and hub. If it was hit in the wheel, I'd look at the hub.

Having helped a buddy with this exact scenario (10 years ago,) we discovered that the strut itself bent between where it bolts to the knuckle and the spring perch.

Had this happen with a buddy's Sentra SE-R that he slid into a ditch. Discovered the strut shaft had bent (!) Couldn't tell it was bent until I removed the strut. So even though they are STI pieces i'd check the strut for damage as well.

Strut shaft is a good guess, too. If you loosen the top nut and rotate the shaft, the bend will show up as the wheel moving in and out with the rotation.

You lost camber on the left, so the shifted sub frame looks likely.

I vote for the bent strut

Bent LCA in a crash such as that usually manifests as uneven caster from side to side. At least that's how it went on my '06.

You have lost caster on that side (and it's not adjustable), so it wouldn't surprise me. The arm is black and difficult to read, but it's designed to warp like that. I bet if you get a fresh arm and hold them up side to side the difference will be pretty obvious.

The rear LCA mount on the subframe is removable so it might be worth comparing that side to side. If you're going to do anything to the subframe, you'll have to pull that stuff anyway, so you might as well compare and/or replace for an ALK.

Note that wagon and 93-01 Impreza LCAs do not interchange with the sedan; the sedan track is wider. You can use aluminum LCAs from an 04+ STI which will give you the opportunity to do the old "caster trick."

That doesn't mean, of course, that the strut isn't twanged as well. The clevis tabs on the bottom are only doubled-up stamped steel and are also designed to bend to protect the hub. The camber is extremely suspicious, so I would lean towards that being the primary source of your problems.

The Impreza's chassis design is basically like "jumping OK, curb hitting not OK." Hitting curb-like things sets off a lot of suspension fuses, and hitting other things with the front end usually busts the rad support and/or the camshafts.