My car was involved in an accident where I understeered into the curb damaging front lower and upper control arm, sway bar end link, strut and wheel; all on the driver's side. I replaced everything and torqued everything down following proper honda manual instructions and then got a regular Ap1 alignment. When I drive pass 60km/h and over bumps such as bridge joints, the car would pull right and then immediately left; returning back to the original direction of travel. The faster I go, the faster and harder this occurs. I originally thought it was due to the replacement driver shock being newer compared to my worn out 200k shocks on the other 3 corners, so I replaced all the shocks with a used ap2 set. The pulling was still there, albeit less severe as before. This lead me to believe it was due to the suspension travel because the ap2 front shocks are harder than the ap1. In addition, when I changed to my winter wheels with softer side walls, the pulling was again reduced. My mechanic told me that I probably replaced the parts with damaged used parts, the controls arms in particular. However, I was able to get an alignment done properly so I don't see why it would be my controls arms. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Also if it is my controls arms, is there a way to figure out if its the upper or lower that is damaged? And can the sway bar cause the pulling if it is damaged?

 

Not an expert by any means, but sounds like it might be a bump steer problem. Is your car lowered? Did you replace all of the suspension bushings with new? Tire pressures? If not the above, maybe you need to really closely examine your used parts. Something bent?

Good luck.

 

This screams bump steer problems.

To answer your questions:

-You can achieve correct static alignment with damaged suspension components.
-There's no good way to figure out which ones without accurate measurements, but there's still good troubleshooting you can do.
-The sway bar can cause pulling, but it's usually persistent, not transient. If it's bent, and you are using OEM end links, you will have different preload on each front corner, which will make bump steer worse.

I'd check the free/easy thing first; I'd remove the sway, and see if the problem goes away, then check for bending, and if it's not bent, re-center and remount it. If you don't find the problem in the sway bar, check your camber/caster bolts. If the adjustments are wildly different, you can suspect a control arm. If they're not, I'd suspect the knuckle.

I'm going to go out on a limb and bet that your used knuckle is the problem. If the steering link arm on the knuckle is bent, then you will be able to achieve perfect static alignment, but one of your steering arms will not be the same length as the other, and you will have horrible bump steer problems like you describe.

 

If temp removing swaybar resolves it, it could just be bad end links which are binding. You can disconnect bar without removing from car. Just remove endlink on one side, then testdrive.