Hit While Parked by Package Van/Truck - Suspension & Steering Damage (Warning Inside)

[Intuit]

WARNING: With play/slack in the steering system, aspects of the vehicle's handling may become unpredictable and/or potentially dangerous. If you have excessive play/slack in the steering system, drive carefully until corrected.


2016 with ~76,000 miles. Parked at home wheels straight, came back from work on my motorcycle to find my car knocked up into the grass, wheels cocked all the way over. This was a hit and run. ** (suspected perpetrator of this incident at end)







As you can see in the photo, broke the mirror cover, knocked the (folded in) mirror mount loose at door, dented and scraped the fender above wheel well, touched the bumper, blew the tire after rolling up onto the backside of it, little paint missing from the face of the wheel. After driving up on ramps to swap the wheel on the street, I could tell it was driving on the tire sidewall. Noise from the steering column and can feel some binding when turning.

QUESTION: Does you steering column lock with the ignition off and key out of the vehicle? (mine no longer does)

$1,200 for a new struts, driver side inner and outer tie rod ends. I did not receive a pre-strut replacement alignment, but below is the post-strut replacement alignment sheet.
No longer feels like it's driving on the sidewall but is clearly not right. The driver side tire inner sidewall rubs when turned to lock. The passenger side I can stick my hand in there with plenty of room.
I told the shop this and was basically blown off, saying the suspension needs time to settle. Repeating the story of how it was knocked off the road into the grass, was again blown off. Was told to bring it back after having the body shop do their repairs.







It drives kind of like a truck, wondering the road. No more binding. Doesn't feel like it's driving on the sidewall. Still noises from the column. There's a lot of play in the steering. There's a rapid back/forth vibration from the column on certain sections of highway.

Its driving behavior is rather weird, sometimes inconsistent. It resists changing lanes, especially a slow lane change. But, it wonders and ping-pongs the lane, even more when attempting to accelerate aggressively.

Driving it for the first time since returning it home from the shop a week ago, rounding a corner Friday, the stability control oddly freaked out and nearly had me sideways. I could hear the passenger rear brake "roughing" hard as I worked to correct its course with multiple rapid steering inputs; barely managing to keep my (w-i-d-e) lane. Wouldn't surprise me if the left-lane driver that started following me after this, reported me as a concern to the police. Fortunately it was dry, not frigid pavement. Now I don't trust it with anything beyond leisure paced cornering. I do not trust it with quick inputs at highway speed. (potentially dangerous)

Having read the service manual (attached as PDF docs) I had overview / understanding that explains most of its weird behaviors. The EPAS (Electronic Power Assist Steering) system is rather complicated. It takes steering angle, user input, speed/force of input, vehicle speed into account when calculating assist. It gathers info from multiple computers. It also has a bit of programming to prevent what would be normal wondering with road surface changes; I suspect utilizing yaw sensors to tweak handling. In conjunction with stability control, torque vectoring, this is why its handling behaviors are now weird, even inconsistent. It's notably "weird" when driving straight and encountering (geometric) road plane changes. The sensors and reversible motor are all in the steering column. Nothing in the "steering gear", I think. (aka 'rack & pinion' from the old hydraulic assist systems)

Sunday (today) I took the time to put it up in the air and investigate. The driver side inner + outer tie rod they replaced, did nothing. There is a metric ass ton of play in the steering. So far it seems to be isolated to the rack.

Regarding the rub on driver but not passenger, the driver strut appears to be much closer to the inner fender wall, than the strut on the passenger side. I have no understanding on what may be causing this.

So at this point, I'm debating on whether to replace just the steering gear, or the entire cradle due to how well integrated it is with the control arms and ball joints. The steering ear is attached to the cradle via three bolts.

No trans, clutch, e-brake or half-shaft (axle) damage that I can tell. No knuckle or wheel bearing damage. (items that may get damaged when "curbing" or hitting a curb) Time will tell.

Attached PDF Docs:
2016 Ford Fiesta ST - Power Steering - System Operation and Component Description.PDF
2016 Ford Fiesta ST - Power Steering - Steering Gear + Tie Rod.PDF

==============================================================

** Couple of days later I get an email from the Amazon seller about returning a package that was never delivered to start with; while Amazon status itself was never updated. (now says package may be lost) The contractor normally pulls in front of my neighbors home to deliver packages. This time they hit (not clipped) my car. I've seen them come very close before; as well as back into a tree and clip mirrors. (they would've kept going that time too had a neighbor sitting on his porch not caught them) Many of these contractor drivers look like they should still be in a nearby high school.

https://www.fiestastforum.com/threa...esta-st-as-it-sits-right-now.3394/post-516579

 

[XR650R]

Probably didn't finish high school.

 

[SteveS]

If you're having a body shop work on it, they would typically investigate and repair things like broken steering racks and so on. Obviously you put suspension on it to keep driving while waiting for the appointment with the body shop, but they fix all that kind of stuff. It's also possible the unit body is shifted over. They can see that on the frame machine.

 

[atlantaM3]

bent lower control arm?

 

[madhatter]

^that. lower control arm might not be bent to the visible eye, but the rear compliance bush could be torn also. I'm frankly surprised the shop you took it to didn't replace it already. they're not expensive, and easy to swap. might have missed it, but is the sway bar end link also new?

 

[rallytaff]

Many years ago, I had a Ford Focus and I woke up one morning to find that a vehicle (unknown) had reversed into it during the hours of darkness while parked on the street. Obviously a hit and run and the car was totaled. My wife heard the crash but didn't wake me. I believe it was done deliberately by the skid marks left by the offending vehicle. Hope that the bastard who did it suffered for the rest of his/her life!

 

[Intuit]

Minor update. Started some work in the last month.

Part Swaps November 2025:

• I replaced rack & pinion
• I replaced both control arms
• No alignment performed

The rack & pinion does have a slack adjustment. Since you have to drop the sub-frame to get to the slack adjustment, I replaced the entire rack anyway.


With only a few miles of driving, eliminating the play in the steering addressed the following issues:

• Fights lane changes
• Under moderate acceleration = tracks like tipsy driver
• Under heavy acceleration = tracks like drunk driver
• At highway travel speed steering wheel has strong rattle + vibration

So the above issues seem to have been resolved.
Those who claim to have issues with "drift compensation" may wish to tighten things up using the slack adjustment setting on the rack.

Remaining issues:

• Left vs right turn handling is different
• Likely incorrect steering angle pivot, driver front wheel
• Driver side tire makes strong contact with inner fender on right turn
• Steering wheel no longer locks
• Intermittent squeaking noises from EPAS acting on steering column
• Driver mirror cover broken off.
• Driver mirror mount knocked loose.
• Sideswipe/impact damage to driver door, driver fender, bumper

When asked about the mechanical steering stop, AI seems to imply that this can be handled by contact between the tie-rod end and steering knuckle. Skeptical but will confirm. Would be nice if all I had to do was replace the driver side steering knuckle. But it is a common intersection between suspension and steering.


I did run across a 2020 year pre-wreck alignment sheet. (Dealer under warranty unnecessarily replaced axles and did not perform an alignment following the work; which was obvious in driving.)





Skeptical re steering knuckle...

 

[madhatter]

your left/right steering issues, as well as the tire rubbing, i believe will be addressed with an alignment. when swapping out the steering rack, you have to thread the tie rod ends in and it's difficult to get them both the same, so i think you'll be good once you can get it on a rack and get it sorted. Make sure you tell the tech who's doing the alignment about what you're experiencing or they may just check toe/caster/camber and send it.

 

[Intuit]

your left/right steering issues, as well as the tire rubbing, i believe will be addressed with an alignment. when swapping out the steering rack, you have to thread the tie rod ends in and it's difficult to get them both the same, so i think you'll be good once you can get it on a rack and get it sorted. Make sure you tell the tech who's doing the alignment about what you're experiencing or they may just check toe/caster/camber and send it.

Appreciate your looking things over and commenting. This is not just a rub, it is literally striking the inner fender.



I've swapped out two racks before on another vehicle (first rack knocked, second one leaked) and the alignment shops don't have anything to do when I take it there. The trick is to place them parallel to each other and match them up by thread-count. Between left/right on the damaged OEM, the thread counts were only different by one or two IIRC; keeping in mind that it was "aligned" post damage. Minor adjustments can make a very noticeable difference for handling and suspension performance but it won't explain the inner fender contact. I set the replacement to equal thread-count between left/right and will let the frame shop deal with it, once I take time to investigate the steering knuckle.

 

[SteveS]

I am wondering, has the car been measured and found to be straight and square? Are the mounting points for the suspension in the correct position at every corner? Is the inner fender in the correct position?

If the car is straight and square, the suspension and steering mounting points are all in the correct places, and the tie rods are threaded in equally on both sides, one would think that when aligned correctly it should be all normal.

One might think that if the car was hit on the drivers side front wheel, and then rubs the inner fender on that side, that the car is bent such that the control arm on that side is too close to the inner fender.

Aside from bent car, I also wonder if the steering is controlled to some degree by the car's computer...

 

[Intuit]

Not yet taken it to the frame shop. I *think* the fender hasn't been pulled out any.
Looking at the 2020 alignment sheet versus 2024, the rear alignment has me worried about the "squareness" but that could've been a result of a tech sitting in the vehicle or the door being left open.
IIRC the alignment is supposed be performed with me in the vehicle but I don't ever remember a shop doing that. I'm not a big guy and don't ask to be in it.