ok i was up parting in the woods friday, on my way down there is this corner and a big gravel parking lot on the side, so i decide to do a couple of slides. the first one went fine slid like 30 feet or so. then the second one i hit something and then got two flat tires down the road. so not to drag this on any more, my car pulls to the right now. i don't see any thing the is out in the open. any help would be great.

the control arm would be my guess, it has 2 bolts on the lower suspension arm, and bolts to the body in the rear. I seem to bend those rather frequently offroad.

i will have to take a look at that when i get back from my ride. whats the cost on a new control arm?

Tie rod is also a possibility. I've seen struts bend on these cars, but you have to hit stuff really hard to do that.

 

For any of these parts, I don't even want to guess what new ones would cost, but you can get good replacements from the junkyard pretty cheap.

A picture is worth a thousand words

picture? well all i have is a camera phone. the the pulling changes from side to side when donwshifting(pulls to the left) then upshifting(pulls the to left) then when crusing at speed it does it quickly. i think my cv shafts are causing this. i know they are going out

ok its getting worse and starting to get a good bounce going on. i don't see anything that really looks bent. i'm going to go try and look at this other hatch i saw on my way home today. its on jackstands and the front wheels are already off.

You might have blown out a strut when you hit whatever it was that was hard on the road. If you bottom a strut out it can damage the seals on the piston that dampens shock when going over bumps. I have had blown struts on previous cars that I have owned and the signs that your car is exhibiting make me believe that you blew out one of the struts.

if the pull changes with accel/decel you might have split a suspension rubber

piece...

like the swingarm pivot, or leading rod bushing.

might be hard to detect the split without lots of light under there

 

thats my first guess, i guess

well all of the bounceing has gone away and i think almost all of the switching sides, but when my wheels are straight the wheel is turned to the right. the bounceing was caused by a tire with a big bulge in it.

i'd check out the control arm. while offroading in some snow i slammed into a curb and severly bent my control arm. used one for $25 dollars and i was on my way. mine was obvious because it was so bad, but a minor bend in it could easily be overlooked and cause symptoms your'e describing.

Sounds like you fuct up a ball joint. My wagon was torq steering really bad the last few weeks, put new ball joints on the thing, and it doesnt do it any more.

 

I've bent struts, control arms and radius arms. heh, and they are still on the wagon, still drives straight. Never bent a steering gear/tie rod though.

 

just my thoughts..