Just went on Air and tie rods bent. Need help and advice.

[suki.supra]

Good day everyone.
A few days ago I went on air suspension and drove the car home just find that night. Let the car sit for a few days AIRED out and come back to drive her to fill up on gas and I’m getting a lot of Chassis Stabilization errors so I took her in immediately to the shop.

This is what they found;

Bent tie rod on Driver side.
Here is a pic of the passenger side for reference;

I ordered a new tie rod but the shop recommends adjustable control arms for the car but what could have caused the rod to bend SIDEWAYS rather than up and down?

I did not go over any big potholes and during the install of the bags we did put some pressure onto the assembly to get the seized shock out. Could it be the weight of the car or improper install where somethings were too tight while other things were too loose that made it bend after using the steering wheel to turn left and right?

Should I invest into better aftermarket adjustable arms or should I be okay?
I’m not looking for crazy camber, went bags just for show and being able to change ride height to avoid scarping.

Any help would be great. Thank you!
PS: I pray my steering rack is okay. I’m not sure yet but first gotta fix this issue before inspecting the steering rack.

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[Traxion]

The other tie rod I've seen fail was in that direction (from track use) rather than up and down. In any case, what it really sounds like needs to happen is to throw a GoPro in that area while the car does a full sweep left and right both while at lowered and raised height. In my opinion, adjustable rods aren't going to fix anything if it's the upper control arm smacking into the tie-rod. Look for witness marks on the underside of that control arm and on the tie-rod where it's near it.

The passenger side has witness marks which very clearly show that the upper control arm is running into the tie rod where the pinch bolt is. It shows that the tie rod is getting caught underneath and on the outside of the control arm. I'm surprised that tie rod isn't damaged either. If the car weight settled on it while it was under the control arm it could have broken it. That definitely needs to be fixed. Turning to far to the left would continue to push that against the control arm.

Overall to me it seems like you've slammed the car so low that you're causing problems with clearance on everything else.

 

[lucky phil]

Image 1, front tyre inside edge wear on top of your steering arm issues. Not even going to mention the stretch.

 

[FLtrackdays]

I learned the hard way, did the same thing when I lowered mine. Like Traxion & Phil mentioned, you’ve definitely gone beyond the angle/geometry those OEM parts were designed for. Adjustable tie rod ends would help. Lowering changes the angle of the tie rod which will cause binding & increases bump steer. If you wanna alter from the OEM setup, adjustable tie rod ends will relocate the pivot point for ya so they can move freely.

https://www.splparts.com/products/b...d-ends-toyota-supra-gr-a90-gr-bmw-z4-g29.html

I’m pretty sure I have an extra set (I never used) of tie rod ends SPL sent me. If you & your shop are interested, you can PM me. I have almost new LCAs from them as well, before switching to Verkline. I did one weekend I believe. My original SPL parts were put under a lot of stress at Sebring (higher speed track, greater compression, heavy trail braking, etc). So a lot of those components they replaced for me are practically new. Anyway, I haven’t gotten around to listing them on here yet.

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