So my gf's brother headed off to the army, so he sold his 99 tacoma to her for super cheap. The thing is he had just gotten in a car wreck with a little Honda civic, it was in a parking lot, but still going pretty fast. He said he hit her head on going 20 and the truck actually jumped onto the car and off near the side of the winshield. So I guess he hopped onto the hood and off near the windshield? I don't have all the details, but I drove it this weekend and there were some things def. thrown out of whack...

When driving you have to turn the steering wheel about 40 degrees to keep in a straight line, but once you do that it will stay there and drive a straight line. It's like the wreck displaced something in the steering and caused it to shift the wheel 40 degrees.

The front two tires have VERY uneven wear, the insides of each are wearing way fast than the outsides, this may have been before the wreck too, as the difference is pretty severe. Is that just an easy alignment issure, or camber???

Let me know what you think happened... TIA

 

sounds like you have a couple of things going on.

inside were like that can be a function of negitvie toe (they point out instedad of in which is bad)

i would take it to an alignment shop in the area you know/get recomendations from local peeps. They should be able to sort things out or tell you wahts bent/broke and needs replaceing.

 

spot-on. take that thing in before the tires are toast. i've lost four to bad alignment before.

 

Go to Firestone and just get the lifetime alignment....

 

just bad alignment can be the cause of having to turn the wheels 40 degrees to keep a straight line?

 

may be the tie rods got tweaked ?

 

sounds like something along those lines

 

if he went up onto the car in the accident, the steering rack could be messed up too if the car hit it from underneath. might want to have a look at that too.

 

Big-O on Mae Anne has always been good to me. They'll put it up on the lift and tell you what's wrong with it (free). Their alignment price is somewhere around $50. The lifetime alignment deal through firestone is a pretty sweet deal ($150). I've been treated well there too (the one by meadowood).

 

does it need to go up on a lift, or is this something I can check out from under the car? The problem is that she's living in Sanoma for the summer, I'm going to visit her this weekend, so I could try to look at things, but what should I check for?

 

Saw her this weekend, the tires are bald on the insides now, can just a bad alignment do that? Any good alignment shops in northern California?

Pics of the tires...

Also if anyone has a replacement bumper for sale, I'm interested...

 

We go to a guy who runs a place called B&M, and he does brakes and mufflers too. It's on Marietta, and usually he's pretty reasonable about his pricing and will fix it if the problem persists.

 

If you can take it to a shop that mounts and balances tires, then have it aligned. In the pic., the alignment is way whacked out.

No sense driving it from shop to shop and wear out a new set of tires.