GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

Thanks all fixed.

Most body shops can fix almost anything. If a truck hit your car, then their insurance company should pay to properly fix the damage. I had a 1996 Voyager hit so hard that the front right wheel was turning at a 30 degree angle. Body shop fixed it 100%.

Sounds to me like you need to take the car to a quality body shop rather than where you have taken it so far.

If a mechanic told me they didn't know how to fix my car, I would be gone to someone who can. Why waste money on an incompetent?

There are lots of components behind the wheel that could absorb an impact like that and be bent.
-Tie Rod (inner or outer)
-Ball Joint
-Control Arm
-Knuckle/wheel bearing if it was hard enough of a hit
-Struts as mentioned

Only way to be sure is to take a good look. I suspect one of the tie rods ate it.

It's probably not frame damage, all of these parts would have had to fail first.

You need to go to a body shop with a frame rack and have the car measured. I wouldn't be surprised if your strut tower/mount is pushed in. Like mentioned before, if you were hit the other persons insurance should be covering this.

so bad news; frame damage front end on the car. pushed IN about 3 inches and 2 inches UP.

..i know it's hard for you to guess ...however my repair guy says it could cost as much as $4k to pull the frame??? is that realistic? any ideas if i'm being fed bs..

Don't know if that's a reasonable cost or not. Is that $4K to repair all the damage or just to straighten the frame?

A concern some people have is that modern cars have crumple zones to help soften impacts for occupants, and once a zone is crumpled, it can be pulled back into shape, but it might weaken that spot, providing less protection (and more damage) if it were to be impacted again. I'm not sure I subscribe to that, but it kinda makes sense. It may be a significant process to restore that area to pre-accident integrity.

I can imagine various scenarios. Why don't you just turn the whole thing over to your insurance company and have them get the car fixed for you?

"Basically a truck hit her in the wheel area - awhile back"

For your sake I hope it didn't happen as your wife was running a red light or stop sign. And if so, I hope you have collision insurance. But the "awhile back" makes me wonder. There are notice requirements within x days in insurance policies. The fact that you put new struts on it (assume at your expense) leads me to suspect you don't have collision coverage and the truck was not at fault or was uninsured.

Strange - original post edited to "All fixed". No further explanation like "had some holy water from Lourdes and the rest is history" or "that Obamacare works wonders".

I was thinking the same thing Jerome HE should have simply left the title & original content the same AND post a final sentence or two explaining the fix & what was involved. Oh well not all of us communicate the same way. Life would be too simple if that were the case

Editing the title and OP kind of ruins the value of the thread to anyone researching in the future.

The way the thread title and first post were changed open the door for all kinds of wild conjecture.
Perhaps our asking about insurance would have led to more details on how the damage actually occurred, and the OP felt it was better to just turn away rather than go public.
Perhaps evil black magic was used to restore the car, which is now nicknamed "Christine"
Perhaps, through careful time travel, the accident was avoided and therefore the car now never needed repair.
Perhaps an episode of some Spike channel reality show, to be aired in February, covered a team of ninja repairmen who secretly restored the car one dark night