Car wanders all over the road on acceleration and braking

[PowerSerge5000]

I recently bought a 2018 fiesta st with 45k miles. This car was damaged in the front and had the frame pulled. Everything on the car is stock besides exhaust.

When I accelerate hard the car will usually wander left and right and I have to hold the steering wheel pretty tight. It will even do it in 6th gear where the car will want to pull to one side or the other. It will also do it when I brake but it's less noticeable. In general just cruising on the freeway the steering feels just a tad loose.

Looking under the car everything looks good. No torn or leaking bushings that I can see. Grabbing and shaking the front wheels nothing feels loose like tie rods. Shocks feel good when I push down on the car.

I understand there will always be torque steer but this car will pull left right left right multiple times through one gear pull.

I took it to a regular car and exhaust shop to get a muffler installed and asked the mechanic to check the suspension. He said everything looks fine in the suspension and he can tell by the marks the frame was pulled and is probably causing my issues. He said I should take it to a frame and alignment shop and have them align the frame a little more.

Could my issue be with the frame? Or is there a suspension component I should check?

 

[PowerSerge5000]

Talked to the same mechanic again and he said he could tell the frame was pulled but it did look straight.

 

[LilPartyBox]

Start with an alignment at a reputable shop. They'll know if the thing is twisted or just needs a regular alignment.

 

[Dialcaliper]

Check the alignment - I noticed my car (clean no accidents) acts like that if there’s too much toe-out, or even zero toe, especially on roads that arent in great shape

One thing that makes it worse is that some tires are more sensitive than others to steering inputs.

The other is that when the car was wandering like that, I noticed my urge was to overcorrect the wheel and try to force the car to go straight, which actually made it worse - my theory is that rapid steering inputs under throttle trigger the ABS torque-vectoring, which makes it even worse. Now I concentrate on just holding the wheel still and the car tends to correct itself (with the same sort of annoying delay as the factory ESC).

I eally wish you could disable the torque vectoring!

 

[Zormecteon]

Before I installed a stiffer RMM it would scrabble on hard acceleration, but not in the upper gears as you seem to be experiencing, but still something to check, especially on a higher mileage car. Another question is does it happen on EVERY road? Around here some of the roads are so rutted (from studded tires) that the car will feel like it's wandering all over, but it's just bumping from one side of the ruts to the other, so check a different road? ..
Next up, after you've checked that the front end is all aligned, bushings new, no bent parts is to check the tightness of the rear end of the car. Make sure that the rear axle is also aligned, bushing good, etc... If it's moving around that too could cause you problems..

Good luck. Keep us informed

 

[WannabeST]

My first step would be to get an alignment from a good shop. They will give you the alignment specs before and after.
The car most likely has the toe all out of wack and that's why it's driving funky. If the car doesn't align straight they will tell you and you'll know from there. If the car aligns straight and you still have these issues, you likely have something either extremely loose or blown. Which I would hope the alignment shop would notice.