i know its not a fiero, but its generally automotive related, and fiero's do use cast spindles, but on my 04 pontiac vibe (atleast its a pontiac badge on it) that i purchased from a salvage yard was wrecked on the front passenger side. A friend of mine who works for a dealership in frame repair told me that the spindle was stretched, visually looking at the spindle i cant tell anything was done to it, it looks normal, he tells me that the very slight color differences in the cast metal in a few of the bends tells him its stretched and needs to be replaced, is there any truth to this? it looks just like the spindle on the other side but without fine measurements there's no way to really tell i dont guess, anyway the strut was deifnatly bent. would i be better off to go ahead and get a replacement spindle, or just put a new strut on it and hope the spindle is ok? all the damage to this car was basically at the front bumper/wheel area on the passenger side.

matthew

Most suspension uprights are ductile iron and can bend.

so i guess in an accident that was bad enough for the insurance company to total the car, its easily possibly to have bent the spindle, thats what i wanted to hear anyway, im going to go ahead and order a spindle

matthew

It doesn't even need to be that bad of an accident. There was an 88 fiero that spun out at one of the turns at Waterford. It knocked the tire off the bead and bent the rear upright and he didn't even hit anything.

A friend of mine has a Fiero that slid sideways into a curb (courtesy of his son.)
It bent the front spindle noticeably, as well as shattering the wheel and the rotor.
(It also broke the tranny in half, where it bolted to the engine, and tore up some other stuff. If he didn't do all his own work, and have a supply of spare parts to choose from, it would have been a total.)

I've bent mine before. It can happen.

I bent one on an '88 GT I owned. It was obviously bent, but when in doubt replace it!

Yes, I hit a curb and bent the a-frame. Put a new A-frame back in and it was still bent badly. I would have never believed it was bent but it was. Rick B