Josepi

Brief overview of what happened:

Driving back after a night out on the town, it hadn't rained all day. Took the turn into the neighborhood at about 25-30mph (done all the time). Sadly, for some odd reason, there was water on the road (damp/wet) and the car went into a slide. I managed to get it pointed in the right direction, but I was still carrying momentum sideways. I ended up slapping the curb. Cheesy ascii diagram:

curb -> || <-car

That's the bad part. The worse part is, my front wheels were turned to the right so I believe the front left wheel impacted the curb like:

curb -> |/ <-wheel

Now to the damage. The car pulls to the left if the steering wheel is "straight". In order to drive straight, the wheel has to now be turned ~5-10 degrees to the right. It's pretty squirrely, the steering feels like the wheels are like:

FL -> \| <- FR

After removing the tire and inspecting for damage, the control arm appeared fine without any bends or stress marks (I'd presume if it bent, I'd see some cracks in the light dirt that surrounds it). The rod coming from the steering rack is as straight as it can be.

My question is pretty simple. What part of the suspension could be damaged in such a manner to cause the pull? At first glance, everything "looks" ok, the rim got a quite of bit of material removed from the lip causing vibration at speeds greater than 55-60. I'm presuming that's just out of balance. No vibration is noticable <30MPH.

Rxmfn7

iTrader: (4)

Tie rod possibly. I once slid off the road and hit a ditch pretty hard (~25-30 mph impact) in my old POS dodge shadow. It ripped the front bumper off, and flattened 2 of my tires from the impact. I happened to have 2 spares in the trunk, and drove it home. It pulled way to the left though. I took it to get an alignment, and it fixed the problem, and they said that nothing seemed bent. Worth a shot anyway..

rusaccord

A possible problem is that you bent your chassis.I did this one fine icy winter in my Accord. Look for stress marks under the hood and in the wheel well, but an alignment is probably the thing to do.

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

you need to look at the following.

wheel for out of round/bent
wheel hub; possibly damaged bearings (lok for play/noise)
spindle for bends
its possible the strut is bent too
control arm; the aluminum will bend before it breaks, also cheack the lower ball joint for play
on the tie rod you're looking for bends, damage to the ball joints
subframe, look for bends etc
body, its possible you bent that, but unlike hondas (ive seen bent hondas too, didnt even hit anything!) mazda's are pretty tough.

also if you take it apart looking for stuff be on the lookout for bent/streched bolts

at a real shop the minimum that would get changed here is the tie rod, lower ball joint and the wheel hub on that side, those are the things that like the curb the least