[s-cars] S6 steering issues (long)

[K G Hayes]

Hey guys,

To my embarrassment I've had my first accident in ~15 years.  I put on my
snow tires and gave my car a quick checkup for a drive from Loveland, CO to
Provo, UT all seemed fine.  Topped off the windshield washer fluid and
headed out to run some errands before we left.  Initially, I noticed a huge
difference from my 235-40/18 to my slightly oversized 215-60/16 snow tires
on stock rims.  Mainly, less responsive with a kind of mushy feel.  I only
got about 3 miles from home when the car seemed to be feeling loose and tram
lining pretty excessively.  Just as I was having that thought about
'excessive tram lining' the car pulled left towards oncoming traffic.  I
pulled the wheel right and after that the wheel seemed unresponsive and we
headed into a ditch and hit some large pipes that were waiting to be
installed at a new construction site.  I only hit the pipes with the
front-middle of the car.  It seemed to be a fairly low speed impact to us
(no airbag. why?) and we knocked the band of 3 (12"x15')pipes about 25 feet
on snow.  The roads were totally dry.

My first impression was that I had lost a wheel because of the weird feeling
of lack of control as we headed for the ditch (even though I torqued every
bolt, doubt maybe?), but when I got out both wheels where there and fully
inflated.  What had gone wrong?  The pipes were about 12" tall and hit the
bottom of the bumper and pushed the a/c condenser back along with the
radiator.  So to get a better look at things I thought I'd back the car up.
I backed it out of the ditch and pulled forward parallel to the fog line
painted on the road.  The steering was really odd!  Backing out I had to
wrestle the wheel a little (due to loss of power steering), but when I
pulled the car forward was when the weirdness started to seep in.  My
girlfriend pointed out to me that the front wheels were towed out and in
order to pull forward in a somewhat straight line the steering wheel had to
be turned 90 degrees to the left.  We were also able to see where my left
front tire was toed out and dragging as we headed off the road.  As the car
sat there I checked the tie rods.  The right side was tight and the left
side clanked when I pushed and pulled the tie-rod.

I had the car towed home so I could figure out what had happened, but can't
get the hood open.  The driver's side will release, but the radiator is
shoved forward at the top and I can't get anything in the right side to
move.  Any hints on opening a pinched hood?  Somebody has to open it.

I also tried checking the tie-rod slop again after parking the car in my
driveway.  There is no clank from either side now.  So now I'm wondering if
anyone has experienced this and what was found to be wrong.  Also, there are
some obvious things that I'd like to insure are checked out.  Steering rack,
upper/ lower ball joints, tie-rod joints.  Are there other things that I
should be looking at for the steering?  Without having the whole front end
checked out I'm not sure comfortable I'll feel since the road feel in these
cars is so poor.  My intentions were to lower the car to get better road
feel, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

I'm going to trailer the car to a couple of shops to get estimates.  Any
shop recommendations for the Front Range, CO.

Any ideas and feedback are welcome.  Sorry for the long essay.


Kenny
wandering 97s6