Suspension sagging on one side after pothole hit.

I�ll preface this with I hit a massive pothole. It damaged both driver�s side wheels, got that fixed, got the car checked out and aligned, shop didn�t notice anything bent or leaking. Car aligned back to spec no problem. I drive it home, it feels fine. No diving that I can perceive, no knocking or bump noises, so I assumed the shocks were indeed fine.�I park it and the next day when walking up to it, I notice the side that hit the pothole with looks lower than usual. Sure enough, it�s lower than the passenger side. I have x74 springs on Bilstein B8s, so there�s no adjustment as far as height goes. Entire suspension set-up is ~10k miles old, replaced this past May. Blown shocks?

Spring is probably broke, very hard to spot.

I’d be looking closely at the spring and perch.

A broken spring? I would expect the perch to be bent long before breaking a spring. also, there�s no difference in ride quality or funky noises�wouldn�t that be immediately noticeable?

I would look at the right rear shock and spring. Someone else here had B8s installed and the washer the spring sits on was installed upside down causing it to slip down. The spring height determines the ride height so that's where to look.

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Checked all the spring washers, all of them were installed correctly. Springs look fine on the car (nothing shifted or broken) I don't have a new shock/strut here to compare, but is there a liklihood I bent the lower perch? I've read that since B8s are gas charged, they do help the spring a bit with ride height.... I drove around last night and there were no weird noises...brought it to 100, took some offramps at higher speeds and no odd vibrations, pulling, diving, noises, nothing......it's just a few mm lower one the driver side. Oddly, the one with the most change is the rear, but the front was obviously the one that took the worst hit.

Well, found out the issue: the strut tower was slightly mushroomed. That's why the ride height was lower on that side and why the passengers side rear had a bigger gap. Gonna be Wednesday until another body shop that does the repair can fit me in. Current shop said it's fine to drive on...shocks, springs, and everything is fine. They double checked the alignment as well. Top hat/bearing will likely need to be replaced, but otherwise it's fine to drive on he said. Equated it to if I had coilovers, it being 1-3 threads lower than the others...just a ride height issue more than anything since it drives and aligned fine. Was told "no track days in the interim though" lol.

That must have been one helluva pothole!

How do they repair? Tap it back down and flatten it? Did the strut not slide inside the wheel carrier even the tiniest amount? That normally happens before the body mounting takes damage/mushrooms, so might me worth a closer look

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That thing is about as deep as a curb....you combine that with decelerating coming up to a light and you have a completely loaded front end that just gets abused. I'm not sure. I know it's common problem in Mini's and BMWs though because of the softer metal they use.. The shop I bring it to (they race/place at Pike's Peak) did tell me that it's far more common than people realize who take thier cars to track days and run over the sausage curbs. And because many people have coilover.s, the amount is usually small similar to mine, and there's no obvious mushrooming, they think a collar just backed out or something, adjust the coilover, and go about thier day.

also check to make sure the tire PSI are the same front and rear as that can make a very small difference also.

I worry about the beating my car takes on our lovely smooth Massachusetts roads with the completely mono-ball suspension and no rubber mounts anywhere.

You are going to get the City to pay for damage right?? I mean the road is maintained by taxpayer money, so if they would spend the tax money to maintain the road the damage would not have happened....

That almost sounds like a metal fatigue issue. I've heard about shock towers cracking, but bending suggests a weakness. That "pot hole" is not that bad. I would be a little skeptical about any suggested repair. At least I would want to know what the shop can do to best fix the problem. Anytime steel is bent or deformed it reduces is subsequent yield strength, making it weaker. That means less force will be required to produce the same degree of deformation next time.

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Good luck with that!

I had a similar experience 7-8 years ago, moving barely at a crawl, and rolled into a similar crater. I heard a loud “snap” sound, thought the wheel broke. I got out and had a look, all appeared ok, but being in traffic didn’t look super close. Once I started rolling again, I quickly realized something was wrong. Pulled off road to discover it snapped an outer tie rod end.

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You're probably right ...lol But I was told by a Police Chief that they would.... I was coming back from my Sisters house in Warrior one night not long ago. There was construction going on at a bridge crossing the Warrior River and I hit a big pothole that within a mile my right front tire was going flat ( TPMS) . I stopped at the local Service Station and got out and was looking at the damage and the Police Chief was there getting gas and asked if there was a problem....( he saw me looking seriously at the right front) ...He called in a Deputy and the two of them actually changed my tire for me right there on the spot and he gave me his card as a witness to the damage and told me to file it with the City.......I had another set of wheels/tires and I just changed them out while I took both right side to a friend I know from the Porsche Dealer who fixes all the wheels for the Porsche Dealer I retired from.....Well, he took his time for sure and ended up fhaving to straighten both wheels and weld them, one cracked while being straightened and the other had a hair-line crack from the pothole.... After he put air in the tires both tires had knots on them.....So it ended up costing quite a lot for a set of tires ( they were at about half life) and both right side wheels repaired and the time lapse was long enough I didn't try to get the City to pay for damage....... So, I wish I had at least attempted to get the City to pay for damage and since I didn't,...... I hoped the OP would have good luck with it...

Here in Sacramento CA, they were grinding the local bypass road and lots of grinding were being kick out on the highway and cracked my windshield on my diesel Ram, went to city website called it in, was told get it replace and send them the bill. took quite a while but it was paid. I have friends who bent wheels on pot holes cause by rain and paid for wheels. call the Highway deportment and ask how to file claim.

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Claim has been filed and is already in process. Claim was started before I found out it was the strut tower mushroomed. Called the DOT to ask how to add on additional damages to that were found when the car was further inspected and they told me to file another claim referencing the original one with all the documentation and since there won't be an investigation to check out the scene, it's fairly expedited. So fingers crossed. Apparently the DOT around here is pretty fair and good about reimbursing and fixing the problem. Especially if you already started/have a receipt for repairs so they can see it was legit. If you attack this issue uneducated though, you'll feel like you get a runaround. Some roads are are maintained by DOT, other roads are maintained by county. Some roads go back and fortch a few times between county and DOT, so unless you know who maintains that segment the incident occured on, your claim will get rejected and you'll be told to start over and go to either DOT or county depending. Luckily, I have a friend that works at County and told me where to look and verify myself as well as tell me himself. So again, fingers crossed. Pictures don't do justice to how deep that manhole is. I wholeheartedly believe if I was going slower and the car were front wheel drive, it would get stuck and just spin the tire. It's deep at the center. I mean hell, it bent a TE37 (forged monoblock)...if you watch this video and start at the 8:00 mark, you can see what kind of abuse a TE37 can take... You Tube There's apparently two ways about it depending on severity, once it's bent back you weld in or use a reinforcing plate. The other way is they order that segment of sheet metal, remove the tack welds/adhesive and weld in the new tower just like they would a rear quarter panel etc... Cost varies obviously on severity, but according to the Mini and BMW guys, it's usually about $600 for the really bad ones to be bent back and reinforced. Add on another $600 for the sheet metal replacement if it split/cracked the sheetmetal. Small fact I found out, used Cup Cars usually have had the strut towers repaired at some point in their life from hitting the sausage curbs at 80+ mph frequently, so it's something numerous race shops see fairly often and if done properly is not visially noticeable.

Oh, and if you're wondering what kind of damage that pothole/manhole did to TE37s: Front wheel that immediately lost air: Rear wheel, it was actually still holding air and I was able to drive it home: Another angle of the rear wheel once it rolled a few inches: Both wheels are repaired now and fine...can't even tell the rear was repaired, the front you can...but meh, I have another set of wheels on the way.

OUCH !!

Ouch is right!

I sure agree with that in eastern Massachusetts as well. The roads in my town are poorly to not at all maintained at all in particular. The roads in Ireland are massively better condition In comparison. That said � that pothole in this thread is scary looking 😬