The short version

  • A light scuff at walking pace rarely moves anything.
  • A solid bang you felt through the steering wheel is worth checking.
  • Crooked steering wheel, a new pull, or a scraped rim means bring it in.
  • A bulge in a sidewall means stop driving on that tyre now.
  • Damage does not repair itself, and every week on bad angles costs tread.

Everyone does it eventually. A kerb on a tight carpark ramp, a pothole that opens up after a week of heavy rain, a road hump taken faster than intended. Most of the time the car shrugs it off. Sometimes it does not, and the damage stays invisible until your tyres start wearing strangely.

  1. Park somewhere flat and have a proper look. Do this before you book anything.
  2. Start with the tyre that took the hit. Run your fingers around the sidewall feeling for a bulge.
  3. Check the rim edge for a flat spot or a gouge.
  4. Look at the pressure. A hard impact can unseat a bead and let air out slowly.
  5. Then drive it. On a flat road with light traffic, note whether the steering wheel sits straight when the car goes straight, and whether the car holds its line when you relax your grip. Listen for anything new. Feel for vibration and note the speed it appears at.

Start here: how bad was it?

Not every knock needs a workshop. Work out which category you are in before you do anything else.

Walk away from a slow scuff against a kerb at parking speed: no noise, nothing felt through the wheel, no visible mark on the rim. Carry on and keep half an eye on your tyre edges over the next month.

Watch it if you felt a firm knock but the car drives normally afterwards. Check the rim and sidewall now, then reassess after a few days of driving, and mention it at your next service.

Bring it in after a hard bang, or if any of these show up afterwards: the steering wheel now sits crooked, the car has started pulling, a new vibration appeared, or you can see a bulge, gouge or flat spot on the wheel.

What actually moves when you hit something

Suspension is built to absorb vertical movement, not sideways shocks. A kerb strike loads the wheel from the side, which is the direction the geometry is least happy about.

Toe is the first thing to shift, because the tie rod that controls it is a relatively slim component with adjustment built in. Camber can move if the impact was hard enough to bend a control arm or compress a strut. In a bad hit the rim itself takes a dent, or a tyre picks up internal damage in the sidewall that you cannot see from outside.

Speed and angle matter more than drama. Rolling into a kerb slowly at a shallow angle is usually harmless. Meeting one square-on with any pace behind it is the one to worry about.

The five-minute check you can do yourself

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A bulge means the internal structure has failed, and the tyre needs replacing regardless of alignment.

If all of that comes back clean, you probably got away with it.

The quiet case: the car feels completely normal and the only evidence turns up weeks later as a strip of wear along one edge of a tyre. Small toe changes rarely announce themselves, which is why a check after a real impact is worth it even when nothing feels wrong.

Singapore's particular hazards

Multi-storey carpark ramps are the quiet menace. A tight radius, a kerb on the inside, and a driver watching for oncoming cars is how most kerb strikes here actually happen.

Potholes tend to appear after sustained heavy rain, when water gets under the surface and traffic breaks it up. They are worst in the wet, because standing water hides the depth and you have no chance to react. Road humps do their damage when taken at an angle or with speed, and loading matters as well: a fully loaded car on a hump puts far more force through the suspension than the same car carrying only a driver.

What we do when a car comes in after an impact

We start with an inspection rather than the alignment rack, because there is no point measuring angles on a bent component. That means checking the rim for damage, the tyre for sidewall injury, and the steering and suspension joints for play. If something is bent or worn it gets replaced before anything is set, otherwise the numbers will be correct for about a week.

Then the alignment itself, the steering wheel centred and locked, and a road test to confirm the car tracks properly. You get the printout showing where the angles were and where they finished.

When to come and see us

If you felt it through the wheel, get it checked. If the steering wheel is crooked or the car has started pulling, get it checked soon. If you can see a bulge in a sidewall, do not drive on it any further than you have to.

If it was a gentle scrape and everything looks and feels normal, keep an eye on your tyre edges over the next month and mention it at your next service. What the check involves is set out on our suspension repair page, and if the car has started pulling since the impact, this guide walks through the causes.