I was involved in an auto accident friday where I was rear ended
by a woman in a minivan while sitting at a stop light. She was
cited etc etc..

I was driving my 98 F150 Ext Cab. While I was shook up a bit and
the life squad came because i was a bit disoriented at first but
was able to drive home.

We thought the only damage to my truck was a bent down
bumper as the trailer hitch took most of the blow.

Well today I went to the body shop to get an estimate on the
bumper as the other party is paying. To my surprise the frame is
bent in 3 places and the bed is not alligned with the cab.

Anyway the body shop is going to fix that too. But my ? is how did
this happen? there was no body damage to anything just you can
see where the bed is uneven and when pointed out to me on the
frame I can see the bends.

I kinda assumed she hit me at a relatively low speed but then I
don't know for sure it was raining I had 8 ft at least between my
truck and the truck ahead of me and when she hit me i had 4 in
of space.

Will this kinda of damage affect handling and driveability at all?
Guess this is one of those things that she hit just right and it
got me?

Thanks in advance,

Tim

PS I am doing ok just very very sore !

 

I live in cincy. What shop are you using? I got a buddy who owns a body shop. I work down there, when I get layed off.
Frame damage should be looked at carefully.
What type of frame rack do they have, and what type of measuring system do they have.
The truck will drive just fine, if the shop does a good job on the frame.
Beware, some shops will shaft you.
There are some shops in cincy that are terrible.
If possible, we'll go look at it together.
Don't accept the truck, untill you get more info from this forum.
zanny

 

<cr>
How did it happen? Well, the bumper is attached to the frame and when the bumper was hit, something had to move. In your case, the frame, along with the bumper and bumper brackets moved.

Can it affect driveability? Sure it can.

Although the frame rails aren't simple straight pieces of metal, they are in alignment with each other. A crash can change the alignment of the two frames. This can result in a variety of different problems, depending on where the frame was bent.

For example:

Lets say the right frame bent somewhere between the front and rear wheels and the left frame was undamaged. This would cause the right rear wheel to be ahead of the left rear wheel. As you where driving down the street, the front wheels would be going straight and the rear wheels would be trying to push the rear of the vehicle towards the left. This same type of misalignment is what causes trailers to whip back and forth.

Of course, in a crash, forces aren't evenly applied so things aren't evenly bent. This results in multiple misalignment problems. This could result in an axle mounting point being too high or low and/or too far forward or back. Besides affecting the axle mounting points, the cab/body mounting points could also be affected.

 

when i ran into a ditch my frame was bent in 7 spots i beleive. obviously it should have been totalled but my uncle knows a guy and i got it fixed for 250 bucks. As long as you take it to someone who knows what they're doing and they have a good machine to work with, you should be fine.