Front end noise.

[rlanders]

My daughter drives a 2008 equinox. The other day she was making a wide left turn an ran over the curb with her right front wheel. Ever since then she has a hum at highway speed which I suspect is a bering noise. What would be the most likely place to start looking for damage? There is no vibration in the steering wheel and it does not pull.

[Ruley73]

If she hit the curb going anything more than 5 MPH, had the steering wheel turned all the way to the left, and hit the curb at a bad angle then she may have damaged some front end chassis parts. Inspect the entire front chassis/suspension & frame for damage, but it sounds to me like just the RF wheel bearing was damaged.

An easy way to check if the control arm and/or subframe is bent/warped is to center the steering wheel and compare the gap between the tire and the fender on a flat, level surface. The gap should look the same on both sides if both front wheels & tires are the same and worn evenly.

We had something similar happen a few years ago in previously owned car. We were in the middle of an intersection making a left turn when I noticed a big, speeding truck was about to run the stop sign across from us. I gassed the car to avoid a collision, but the right front wheel hit the curb. A quick visual inspection revealed that front wheel was clearly pushed back. We limped it about a mile to get home. There was a massive hum from the right front wheel area and it was pulling just a little to the right.

After we got home, I took RF wheel off and found the front sway bar was broke on the right side, the left sway bar link was broke, the RF control arm was bent, and RF wheel bearing was spinning really hard. I went to get an alignment after replacing all of those parts (along with a new pair of front struts), and the shop found that the subframe was also bent.

The car was a 1999 Oldsmobile Intrigue which has a front suspension setup very similar to that found on the Equinox. I'm guessing we hit the curb going only about 10-15 MPH, but at the worst possible angle.

[rlanders]

Thank you for the feedback. I'll check it out.