Accident damage to f/o/s suspension - steering??

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polodad27
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Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2018 11:39 am
Drives: 2007 9N3
Location: bourne lincolnshire

Accident damage to f/o/s suspension - steering??

Post by polodad27 »

Hello Learned Polo owners / mechanics. I am new to this forum and would welcome any help with the following steering problem.
My son has a 2007 VW Polo 9N3, he bought it with his own money from a part time job and is now an impoverished student and was relying on it for transport to and from college.
The car is relatively low mileage and has a very good engine and drive train and has been looked after by VW since new by its previous keeper.
Approx two months ago my son passed his driving test at the fourth attempt!! one month ago a roundabout leaped out in front of him and threw its rather high kerb stone at his immaculate front offside wheel ("at no more than 10 mph Dad") resulting in the alloy wheel being split and wrecked, this also wrecked the suspension (damage list to follow) and he ended up on the opposite side of the carriageway facing the on coming traffic unable to move the car. Can you believe he rang and woke me at 02:20 hrs to say he had a puncture!!!! and i gave him instructions on how to use the car jack etc. until the Police Officer came on the phone to say it would need more than a jack to move it and would i authorise a full lift recovery?!!!!!!!!!!!!!! otherwise HE would get it recovered. FFS!!! My Lad said he was fine apart from an abrasion where the side airbag hit his cheek!!!! and he had lots of white dust up his nose which i also quickly established was from the air bag before asking to speak to the officer again!!!!
The car was recovered to my drive and a sorry sight it looked. Subsequent investigation on removal of the broken alloy revealed he had damaged the following - bent the drive shaft, broken the cast wheel hub where the brackets bolt to the macpherson strut, bent the drop link, bent the track rod end, dented the shock absorber casing, severed the brake pipe, broke the abs cable and sensor connector, and virtually bent in half the lower wishbone.
I am an old school amateur mechanic so with a mixture of new and secondhand parts i replaced everything that was damaged. The track rod was replaced with new and a new track rod end wound on 17 1/2 turns to mimic the previous position. There was no obvious damage to the steering rack but i did notice fluid leaking (spillage?) from around the reservoir area whilst i was underneath the car but the rack itself looked fine as did the alloy and steel suspension sub frame.
I (he) have bought a secondhand seat (airbag) and the airbag (side) control boxes that go under the seat and centrally behind the dash centre console. I have yet to fit the control boxes.
So with a secondhand wheel and the drivers seat temporarily bolted in position i started her up and noted the airbag warning light on which i expected, all other lights extinguished on the warning panel except what i now know to be the power steering warning light which i didn't expect.
The warning light was justified because as i selected reverse gear to steer off the drive there was absolutely no power assistance at all to the steering, in fact i was surprised at just how heavy the steering was.
This is where my (his) problem is, i have little experience with power steering and even less on the electro hydraulic system fitted to this car; from reading i understand that the steering also has an electric control box.
Given the scenario above and the fact the roundabout hit my sons wheel at more like 60 mph+ and not 10 mph! enough to set the drivers air bag off (dash and steering bag did not go off) is it likely that the steering ecu does not want to play any more due to a signal from the airbag ecu? i notice despite my best efforts the front wheels are not in alignment, and when i drove it the short distance on my drive i noticed the steering wheel was way off the central position; could the steering position sensor detect this and tell the control unit to shut down? any other suggestions as to why its not working? the rack did take a whack, enough to bend the track rod end approx 15 degrees. Please forgive my lack of knowledge on this, or if i have missed something obvious, i suppose the sensible thing to do would be take it to the VW garage but its all down to £££ and the lack of it. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated no matter how obvious it seems to you. Many thanks in anticipation.
RUM4MO
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Re: Accident damage to f/o/s suspension - steering??

Post by RUM4MO »

Hi, welcome to this forum, kids eh, I seem to have survived that first car thing well enough, my older daughter will have had her licence for maybe 20 years, and survived driving in UK, Australia and KL and owned 3 cars in UK, 1 for old Holden Barrina(Corsa) in Oz and a MiVe(sp) in KL, now on her 3 UK car. Younger daughter lives in London and has yet to pass her test, which is okay as why would she want that stone round her neck.

Anyway, back to your problem, unless someone chips in soon, maybe for this issue join the Skoda Fabia forum as that one is very active ie Briskoda.net.

I'd be amazed if you did not get some answers within days - expect it is the weekend and most people do their surfing at work?

It is just a pity that you are not a VW Group DIYer as you would probably own VCDS and that scan tool could be able to let you know what the controller thinks is annoying about, good luck.

Edit:- so far I've been lucky with VW Group cars with that steering system, my wife's 2002 Polo run for 13 years and 105K from new with no steering issues, daughter's late 2009 Ibiza she has owned from new and still okay at 54K miles (touching wood!)

Another Edit:- also I'd think that the front cross member will have moved during that impact so the car will need a full four wheel re-alignment despite what a lot of people might tell you.
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