Could the vibration be from a broken motor mount? It is kind of obvious and they should have checked it, but then if they were trying to return a car with fender not aligned, I would not be surprised if they did not give the whole front end a good look.
I would hope that the transmission was not damaged due to the axle pushing on it. Many adjusters will claim, because of lack of mechanical knowledge, that an engine or transmission cannot be damaged in a collision but that is not true. They certainly can be.
The front suspension components are almost certainly damaged on that side. The only question might be what is NOT damaged.
Caddyman’s comment about driving another car by the Fourth of July may not be far off base depending upon how this all plays out.
Keep us informed anyway.
Greetings,
Thank you all for your input - it has been sooo useful.
I have my car back - a week ago - here’s the story. The mechanic who works at a the local non-body shop identified that in fact when i was hit, the drive axle (i have not seen these terms in writing) did in fact push into the transmission and bent the fly-wheel of the clutch assembly inside the transmission. Allstate approved replacing the complete clutch assembly. He also had to replace the upper and lower engine mounts. He said he used new parts - I have not seen the paper work - but he had all my old parts out to show me. Total work is around $6000 from what I can guess.
This mechanic said when he got in to it to drive after repairing it was like a whole different car - which is how my car was before the accident. He stated that for this damage I would have had to have been hit very hard - I don’t know if that is true - but I think I have MY car back. It has already been on a road trip - 330 miles round trip and it seems to be as it was before. I got my 35 miles per gallon which is one of the reasons I like my focus.
I am glad to be rid of the Toyota Yardis I was renting - it had zero pick up and odd angles which effected perception - it was quieter inside than my focus but that was the only thing going for it.
Thank you ALL for your comments and input. If it keeps running this way I will still have it July 5th - we will see. We have another road trip - longer in May; hopefully it will hold up.
My final question: Do I make a claim for the loss of value from being in the accident? Does anyone know how that formula goes?
Thanks
Happy Easter or Happy Passover or Happy Happy if you do not follow any of those!
d
PS Fortunately - all I had to do is keep refusing it. Allstate - really has come through for me.
Glad it worked out for you. Happy motoring!! As for a loss of value claim I don’t think it would amount to much. You have a 5 year old car. Its now back to pre-accident condition. Check with your INS. company. If you did get something will your rates go up? If plan to drive it for a long time I would be more interested in a warranty on the work done.
I’m a bit puzzled about this bent flywheel thing because I can’t see how an axle strike would bend a flywheel and also for the fact that the flywheel is a pretty hefty hunk of metal on a manual transmission car; unlike a flex plate on an automatic which is thin and flexible to a certain extent.
It would be my hope that there are no marks on the engine crankshaft balancer. Something hitting the balancer hard enough can affect crankshaft end play. This could jolt the crankshaft to which the flywheel is bolted and (theoretically) cause a problem of some sort. I’m still having a near imposssible time seeing a flywheel bend because there are a number of much weaker links in the mechanical chain so to speak.
I’m baffled about this.
It was probably a dual mass flywheel and “bent” may not be an accurate term. It could be damaged from the accident so that it would be out of balance, but I would think that if the flywheel was damaged, the differential cage would also have been severely damaged. I’m having trouble seeing how the axle would strike the flywheel directly, but it could damage the differential enough that something in it hit the flywheel.
Yes your car absolutly has deminished value right now, mostly due to the bad carfax it no doubt has right now. With that said it is VERY hard to prove, and even harder to get paid for. If you plan on keeping this car for a long time its a mute point anyway, as your not selling it (which is why its so hard to get paid for this kind of thing)… In fact I know of no one who has actually won this battle.