oliversok

Hello Everyone,

My car is slightly veering to the right. I apologize for the enormous pics. As you can see in the picture, the right beam of the frame of the car has a slight dent in it due to the car being low and speed bumps, etc. Would this extent of damage be enough to damage the frame and make the car veer consistently? The car is MY00 with 200k miles. Tire pressure is good, alignment is good, tires are brand new (i tried switching the wheels/tires to see if it was a tire defect), the right lower compliance bushing is pretty much shot, the lower arm bushings are not in good shape in general, the car only veers when I let go of the steering wheel. If I hold the steering wheel straight it doesn't veer.

What would most likely be the culprit?

starchland

Fix compliance bushing. Hello

B serious

I would echo getting the known issues fixed. They need to be fixed anyway, right?

If bushings are shot...that's a reason to repair. The alignment can't be good (by definition) if the bushings aren't holding the arm properly.

I strongly suggest going with a booted spherical bushing setup rather than rubber.

But there's good rubber options too. Hardrace (good luck finding any) or Spoon/Mugen.

Or buy new control arms - I suggest going with Honda genuine if you go this route.

Also, what do you mean by alignment is "good"? Its a range of acceptable settings.

engifineer

You had the alignment checked and it came out within spec? If so post up the results.

That dent should not cause anything like this.

oliversok

Thanks for all the replies. The alignment is a custom alignment: -3 camber all around, 0 toe up front, .10 toe in rear, caster has a .3 or so variance from side to side. I know I have to change the bushings at some point. The reason for this post was to see if it can be something more serious like a bent frame.

engifineer

Even if there were some slight bending of the frame, it should still align and drive straight. But I do not expect what you see there is impacting anything. Mine has a slight dent like that in that area and has since before I bought the car. Everything aligns perfectly and there are no issues there.

It could be the worn parts causing some pulling.

To be sure, if you can find a very flat parking lot, does it pull there? Roads are crowned and thus it is not abnormal to find your car pulls some on some roads but not others. And with wider tires on the car, tramlining can also be increased on roads that have a lot of wear (grooves in the wheel paths).

oliversok

I am more at ease now. Thank you for that. I just didn't want to spend more money on a car that has frame damage although I could get it straightened for probably a large amount of cash. Next step will be to replace all suspension bushings. As for road irregularities, I came to the conclusion that it pulls to the right from just the overall consistency of it happening on most roads.

AP1Racer

Something to note. If your compliance bushings are bad, you could have a “good” alignment, but your car could be shitty on the road. The front compliant bushings are where the caster alignment adjusters are.
I recently replaced my bushings along with a bunch of others things and did a half-as DIY alignment. Surprisingly my alignment came out pretty good and the car drive straight.

ShellKace

Considering the age with these cars now and days. most still have original bushings. id consider removing all your wheels and closely inspecting all of your front and rear control arm bushings. cracking is a good indication that your bushings could be bad.

your alignment could be within spec when the technication does the alignment but it can easily disalign if bushing are a problem. vibration at higher speeds will be another indication of bad bushings.