I hope this is the right place to post this. Well my wife hit a hard bump this morning. Ever since then my wife has been unable to turn corners. It seems like it will not turn unless You put some gas behind it. After putting a little gas on it, it turns fine. if you don't give it some gas, it seems like there is no power stering at all. I own a 1997 z-24, 2.4 engine automatic. i hope you guess can help me figure this out.

Sounds like you bent something. Pull the wheel off and inspect your tie rod and control arm.

How large was this bump and how fast was she going? "Hard" doesn't help, we need details.
A curb at 50+mph will do incredible damage to a J-body, even bending the frame.
Pulling the wheel off an looking for bent or broken parts is a good start.

sounds like a tie-rod, or if she really slammed it there could be transmission problems.


-Chris

yep I was thinking tie rod as well.

I have a similar problem. A friend was driving my car ('05 Cav, base model) and hit a pole on the front right. The fender, and headlight are smashed. When the car is parked, the wheel is closer to the back part of the wheel well than it should be, I drove it (slowly and carefully) to a garage down the street and had my g/f watch the wheel as I drove by her, and of course she said it was wobbling around. I haven't had time to get it on the lift yet to check it out, but was wondering if this would be a bent axle, tie rod, control arm, all the above? I've already ordered a new fender and headlight assembly, now I want to figure out exactly what the problem is for the wheel to so I can order the appropriate part ASAP.

Control arm is probably snapped. Maybe the strut. One of those two.

Could be many other problems too. When suspension breaks, it tends to require enough force to damage other things at the same time.

I hope shes not still driving it. With issues like that, its dangerous.