Curb Hopping Does Not Work Too Well In a Yaris...

[DevilGirl]

So my car this morning, at approximately 5:10am, my car decided it wanted to attempt to hop the curb. The result was not so good...

I thought it was just a flat tire on the driver's front, and a bent wheel and flat tire on the passenger front side. Not the case.

Both front wheels were bent. Thankfully the tire was still ok, so I had the 3-season tries (Hancook Optimos, bought new this past June) swapped over to the wheels I have for my winter tires.

However, my passenger front tire is also tweaked a little. So it looks like I need a new control arm on that side. Placed an order for one, and it's supposed to be overnighted to me and be here tomorrow so I can get it fixed before I need the car this weekend. We'll see what happens.

I'll upload pics as soon as I get a chance to edit them. Each file is a little too big to upload at this time.

[b20vteg]

ouch...

[Hershey]

double ouch :eek: .

[1.5]

Dang man you gotta control those wild Yarii, so sorry to hear this happened.

[CTScott]

You might want to also order the mounting bolts for the control arm and the tie rod end. Based on what I found with the first Crashy, when the control arm gets bent, so do its mounting bolts and the tie rod end.

[tk1971]

My Yaris had a set of Scion XB 7-spoke wheels and tires (185/65/R15) installed, which made the car a little taller.

In that configuration, I once drove forward to exit a parking space (no car in the space in front of me) and ran over one of those concrete parking chocks. Imagine my surprise when I realized nothing happened to my car at all.

[nookandcrannycar]

My Yaris had a set of Scion XB 7-spoke wheels and tires (185/65/R15) installed, which made the car a little taller.

In that configuration, I once drove forward to exit a parking space (no car in the space in front of me) and ran over one of those concrete parking chocks. Imagine my surprise when I realized nothing happened to my car at all.

I did the same thing in 2011 with the same no damage result. In 2007 I was driving to Florida on I-10 and in either MS or AL a big rig jackknifed and I-10 East was a parking lot in the hot sun for hours. I was stopped near an onramp in a rural area. People around me were driving over a narrow median and backing down the ramp to the frontage road, taking the frontage road to the next underpass, and then heading west. I tried to do the same thing and got a little stuck on the median (which was lower than one of concrete end of parking space blocks. Some nice people got out of their cars and lifted up the back of my Yaris a bit to push me forward/get me unstuck. They did, and I completed what I just described others had done. My Yaris had about 40k on it at the time and was not damaged. I went West to the next Wal-Mart and would occasionally peek outside (I-10 could be seen from the entrance) to check the Eastward backup until finally it was gone. One guy in an 80s Accord didn't follow what everyone else was doing to get out of the backup on I-10. He attempted to drive across the soil between I-10 and the frontage road. The soil was so mushy his car sank all the way to the top of his wheel wells:eek:!

[DevilGirl]

So an update...

The control arm arrived around 10am this morning. We got that swapped out and down for an alignment. Picked it back up this afternoon, drove home. Noticed a shaking at speeds upwards of 40 and above. Also a clicking noise while turning right at speeds above 10mph.

Washed, waxed, detailed, checked tire pressure (right front was low, as was left rear). Filled them back up to 35psi, and went for a test drive. At first the shaking seemed better, but definitely came back.

Got home, and I had a funny felling and checked the psi again in the right front (fine) and the left rear (back down to 25psi). Cranked up the air compressor again, filled, pulled the nose off, and a loud hissing continued. My left rear rim is bent as well...

I will still be traveling to the Hamburg, PA meet tomorrow, but driving with a doughnut on the left rear (thankfully I know enough back roads I can take to avoid the highway as that would not be too safe under the current conditions).

[DevilGirl]

You might want to also order the mounting bolts for the control arm and the tie rod end. Based on what I found with the first Crashy, when the control arm gets bent, so do its mounting bolts and the tie rod end.

The mounting bolts appeared to be in good shape. The control arm wasn't horribly bent. Looking at it by itself, you couldn't really see that it was bent. But on the car with a tire on it, you could see it. It was maybe at most, 1/2" - 1" off.

[fnkngrv]

how far is the trip? those donuts aren't good for very far. best of luck and be safe.

[refotsirk]

Still waiting for the pictures.............and a sign that all is well.....er.

[tomato]

oh boy! Yeah, the donut only has a limited amount of miles. good luck!

[DevilGirl]

It's been a long day. I'll get to the pics hopefully tomorrow.

Yes things are better... Thank you 12Yaris for the wheel and tires!

[Idahotom]

While on a cattle ranch dirt trail, and going walking speed, the damn cell phone rang and like a dummy I answered as it was business/$$ related. While continuing to drive the trail (not a road, a temporary trail across a field to a solar job I was doing) and answering the call I neglected to miss the boulder I had dodged on the way in. It lodged under the body, no damage to the running gear, but the mighty Yaris was now high centered and not going anywhere. The cowboy riding shotgun just looked at me as I shut down the engine while completing the phone call (got the job the call was about, so worth it as it was time related crane work and voice mail doesn't hack it).

We got out and eyeballed the situation, and as we were on a 10% grade I put it in nuetral, took the parking brake off, and we both lifted on the right rear corner, him on the fender and me on the bumper. Being REAL careful not to unstick it but then lose it down the slope, we were easily able to raise it enough to kick the rock free and continue our drive out of the field. It was about as hard as getting an ATV unstuck, light is good in a situation like that, if this didn't work, he indicated his horse could pull it free.....

[nookandcrannycar]

While on a cattle ranch dirt trail, and going walking speed, the damn cell phone rang and like a dummy I answered as it was business/$$ related. While continuing to drive the trail (not a road, a temporary trail across a field to a solar job I was doing) and answering the call I neglected to miss the boulder I had dodged on the way in. It lodged under the body, no damage to the running gear, but the mighty Yaris was now high centered and not going anywhere. The cowboy riding shotgun just looked at me as I shut down the engine while completing the phone call (got the job the call was about, so worth it as it was time related crane work and voice mail doesn't hack it).

We got out and eyeballed the situation, and as we were on a 10% grade I put it in nuetral, took the parking brake off, and we both lifted on the right rear corner, him on the fender and me on the bumper. Being REAL careful not to unstick it but then lose it down the slope, we were easily able to raise it enough to kick the rock free and continue our drive out of the field. It was about as hard as getting an ATV unstuck, light is good in a situation like that, if this didn't work, he indicated his horse could pull it free.....

I have found light to be good in all situations except one --- trying to drive in a crosswind...ESPECIALLY if that crosswind is blowing across the 80 MPH section of I-10 in West Texas. In the morning, after my post #7 on this thread, I thought about a later incident where I observed my predicament happening to another driver, but this driver was trying to avoid driving two minutes out of her way, not the unknown number of hours parked on I-10 in the Summer sun with not enough water/fluids in the car that I was facing. She pretty much deserved what happened to her. In 2009 I was attending a performance of The Nutcracker (in California) that my little cousin was performing in. This was held at an events center that held maybe 2,000 people or a bit more. The building was full. It has it's own parking lot and then a ring road around it and then more parking outside the ring. Only a few people parked in the outside the ring lot and I was one of them. This lot only had one exit and it was at the opposite end of the lot from where I was parked. My area of the lot was closest to the events center and closer to the road leading out to the freeway than other areas of the lot. I was parked on the edge of the lot and there was a median that divided my edge from the road that led out to the freeway. There was a new Mercedes GL SUV (built in Alabama and Mexico only) parked in my row even closer to the events center. After the performance was over, the Mercedes driver didn't want to be bothered driving to the other end of the parking lot, exiting the lot, and then taking that short road to meet up wit the 'to the freeway' road that was on the other side of the median from the front of our parking spaces. There was no traffic, so this only would have taken her about 2 minutes max. Instead she put her SUV in drive and started to drive over the median....SHE GOT STUCK STRADDLING THE MEDIAN with all of the weight of the SUV on the median AND ALL 4 TIRES/WHEELS OFF THE GROUND/IN THE AIR AT THE SAME TIME. She got out and was immediately on the phone....to an OnStar type service or AAA I presumed. I drove to the exit that she was too lazy to drive over to and exited the lot. I had learned my lesson in 2007.

[DevilGirl]

Finally getting around to resizing then uploading pics...

[jayeh]

OUCH!

[MUSKOKA800]

Any charges laid by the officer on-scene?

[DevilGirl]

Any charges laid by the officer on-scene?

Nope, none. He was a nice guy, just at the end of his shift... Was joking around actually. He said he would "have to cite me for killing 10 blades of grass"... The only damage was to my car.