Rear Wheel Sideways - Hit Parking Garage Pillar

[bright vault]

Last night I went to leave my parking garage, and cut a corner too close. I scraped up my passenger rear door and trim and it seems like the wheel took the most of the force, as it is now bent at an angle outwards. In order to drive straight (testing at speeds under 20 mph) I have to keep the steering wheel quite offset from center, and the rear end of the car feels "wiggly".

I'm going to take off the rim with my friend today soon and inspect for damages, but I don't know what I should be looking for. I can send more pictures as needed. I was hoping some of you could at least direct me towards identifying what is broken and needs to be replaced. Any help is appreciated.

[opal bane]

can't say for sure without pictures of the underside, but it may be multiple parts. lateral link is probably a good bet but those can be a pain in the ass to replace because of the way the suspension is connected (at least on the GD/GG cars which that looks like)

[stone island]

Bent trailing arm or lateral link, potentially cracked knuckle

[opal bane]

This is what mine looked like after something similar

replaced the lateral link and the sway bar because i wasn't 100% sure if the sway bar was bent. also the sway bar links and the jesus bolt in the knuckle (because it refused to come out without some convincing)

regardless of what you replace you'll need an alignment afterwards

[bright vault]

alright @opal bane @stone island pitures!

Side I hit ^

Opposite side I didn't hit

@opal bane im trying to look up a part diagram, but if you wouldn't mind labelling the parts in your picture so i know whats what?

[opal bane]

uno momento

holy fuck why is that 14mb

finding part numbers can be confusing because some of these things have various names. but in your picture the red is the lateral link (that needs replaced 100%, it's clearly bent), green is the trailing arm/lateral arm (might need replaced but can't tell from this angle), pink is the sway bar link (would replace that since it looks bent and should replace the opposite side soo), and yellow is the sway bar/stabilizer bar

[bright vault]

okay so - replace lateral link, sway bar link, maybe the trailing arm. is there an angle i could send a different photo to help decide ifi the green needs to be replaced too?

[opal bane]

if you're doing anything with the suspension at the wheel knuckle (which you will need to do to get the green or red parts out)

you need the giant bolt that connects everything together, and hope to god you can get the old one out

[bright vault]

the big one at the end of the red bar?

[opal bane]

yeah. it's like a foot long or something, goes the entire way through the knuckle, and people refer to them as the jesus bolt

dorman 926-046 is OEM replacement that comes with hardware and is like 1/3 of the OEM part cost

[bright vault]

for the bolt? does it usually break? or do people just like saw through it or something

[opal bane]

my 02 had virtually no rust and i still had to cut it out

as far as whether you need to replace the trailing arm, if it's bent you should be able to tell by comparing the ends of the two sides (driver and passenger) where it connects to the knuckle and where it connects to the body

[bright vault]

do i need to replace the yellow sway bar? and thanks for the advice onthe trailing arm

[opal bane]

it doesn't look like it from that picture but again it can be hard to tell. i replaced mine to be safe. but they're a little pricy unless you find a used one

your lateral link is way less bent than mine was

[stone island]

Probably not

With the plastic end links you basically can't put enough force on it to actually bend the bar, the link just cracks

[opal bane]

oh yeah, getting the bolts out of the links is a pain in the ass too

i suppose i should ask, what year and model is this? some of the part numbers for the STI are different (if this is an STI)

[bright vault]

2002 wrx wagon

[opal bane]

oh ok exact same as mine then

lemme get you part numbers

[bright vault]

thanks! I have this for the Lateral Link Assembly Rear Right 20255AA320 so far

[opal bane]

20250FE380 is the updated part for the lateral link, the sway bar link is 20481AA001, and dorman part number for jesus bolt is upthread a bit

i used dorman parts for the lateral link. don't remember where i got the sway bar links from though

[bright vault]

New pics of links. I checked out trailing arm from multiple angles and it looks good

i can tell the sway bar shifted a little cuz near a bushing there is a shiny spot with no dust, so i assume it moved a bit

[bright vault]

@opal bane I found someone selling the entire rear subassembly for $40 from an 04 WRX

[opal bane]

Very nice

[bright vault]

Depending on the condition of the parts I may just swap the whole thing out

And then maybe I wouldn't have to deal with that Jesus bolt?

[opal bane]

Sounds right

[stone island]

I've done that several times to avoid the jesus bolt

[covert apex]

also, before you call it a no-go, at least try spraying some penetrating oil on the lateral link bolt (the long one) and see if it comes loose. who knows, it might come off.

saturate the bolt area with some good penetrating lube of your choice a few days prior, and see if it comes off.

[bright vault]

we actually got it off, but we had to use a hydraulic press to push out the old bushing

then we pushed in a new one!

[covert apex]

nice .

glad it worked out,.

[bright vault]

its normal that even after replacing all parts, my car would still need an aligntment right?

like my "center" for the steerling wheel is not going straight. i set up an alightment for thursday, they are also going to tell me if i broke anything else.

[stone island]

It's good policy to align after suspension work, yes. Tho the rear alone would not directly lead to the steering being off center

[mossy spindle]

unless everythiung is kicked out of line

because the subframe is fucked.

[bright vault]

id be surprised, i was going real slow

[mossy spindle]

I wouldn't, you hit a kerb hard enough to bend a lateral arm, which are tougher than the subframe.

[stone island]

Eh, I've had several cars that were rear lateral smashed like that that aligned fine with just single corner touchup on the settings