Wobbly ride

[APCdude]

In early January, I somewhat drifted into a curb at about 25 mph or so, crashing up about 3 feet on the curb, and snapping suspension components on the front driver's side tire (the only place the suspension was damaged). I replaced all the damaged suspension parts, got a new wheel, and threw the old tire on there (which seemed fine), then had it aligned.The mechanic (from Firestone, I believe?) told me that I had some subframe damage, just a small bend, so he wasn't able to completely align it, but it should be fine.Before the accident, the car always pulled to the left, and after the accident it did so a bit more, but not much more noticeably (I mean it was a pretty hard pull, but not much different than it had been).

Nowadays, the tire that survived the wreck seems to have a very slow leak. I noticed this as soon as August, but it took about 3 weeks for it to deflate from 35 PSI to 20PSI, so it wasn't that big of a deal. Just recently however, the ride has been wobbly - almost like the alignment was way out of whack. At speeds below 30, the steering wheel literally turns about a quarter to a half an inch, back and forth, twice a second. At higher speeds the wheel vibrates, but seems to hold straight - except now it pulls to the right, and pretty hard too.

It doesnt make sense that previously the car pulled left, and now right, possibly harder than when it pulled to the other side.

Another interesting thing - I recently noticed that the outer tread on my front passenger's side wheel is going nearly bald. In fact, on both front wheels, the outer rings on the tread have considerable wear. I don't usually pay close attention to my tire tread, because I believed they were fine.I'm not sure if the problems with the wobbly ride and the hard pull to the right are due to my front driver's side tire being shot, or if the alignment has gone awry.

Any ideas?

[Wraith]

I worked in a Tire shop for over 5 yrs, and to me sounds like you have some serious alignment issues. And Im suprised the shop you took it to did the alignment even after seeing the bent subframe, most companies would turn that type of problem away since they cant be properly aligned and leads to customer returns. The pulling on any vehicle is due to improper alignment or no alignment at all. Wobbly ride is usually due to busted/broken belts in old tires, and sometimes worn shocks/struts. And very rarely a bent rim, dont think this is the case for you since you replaced the rim that was damaged. But if your tires seem to be ok, I would take the vehicle in and have the tires dismounted and just have the rims set up on a balance machine and see what readings the mechanic gets, anything about 1.5 ounce of wieght on each side of the rim is rough but can be balanced out. Anything above 3.0 ounces of weight is due to bent/warped rims. The wearing you are discribing on the tires is from suspension issues.

Thats just my .02 on the matter