bent subframe?

[joy a]

i have a 97 cavalier and my rack and pinion broke...when i took it to the mechanic he put a new in and said when he set the car down and turned the wheel the new rack broke immediately caused by my subframe being bent....my car is lowered and has never been wrecked and i have not done anything for the subframe to bend....so the mechanic put another rack in and had to set the tow in a little different to compinsate for the subframe...so now my steering wheel is a little crooked while im going straight is this normal? has anyone ever heard of a subframe being bent without being wrecked? and how hard is it to bend?
thanks helpful bob...i love my car i have owned it since 97....this is the only major problem ive had...however the problem started after my altenater went out last week,on friday the car died and i had to forcefully steer it.well saturday i got it fixed,drove it and it started fine drove fine and all of a sudden it was hard to steer and was not correcting itself but ive modded it i got the expensive tein suspension so it would not cause stress...i love my car to death great mpg and its quite fast

 

[Parts Guy]

Its a bolt on frame of fairly light gauge steel, its not all that hard to bend. As far as a mechanic bolting a rack to a bent frame you should turn this guy in, he has no business working on a car. As for fixing it the frame new at Chevy is around 350, used ones are 75-100.

 

[helpful bob]

Well yes they could bend but not without due reasons such as you mentioned.Sounds kind of funny to me that the old rack wouldn't of being out of whack and you'd have a steering wheel way off like it is now.
To me if you've owned the car from day one and know you only drove it and had no collisions then that would lead me to think something is funny here.
I'd highly doubt the sub frame could of been bent from day one but it's not impossible , but also it would of been quite noticeable too.
Only thing you can do if you weren't the owner of the car from the start is try to get a report on the car , that may or may not be accurate anyways.
Another thing you could do to make sure one way or the other is have a frame shop take a free look at it and any good frame shop should be able to tell you that the sub frame is bent without you even mentioning it.

Hope that helps and best of luck.By the way I've always wanted to own one of those cars and am curious how you're finding it so far.I'm actually a real GM lover and that's one of the GM products I've yet owned lol

 

[Gosh]

You are dealing with a dangerous idiot of a mechanic. If the subframe is bent he shoud replace the subframe or reuse to work on the car. Sue him for the total amount of the job. Take your car to a certified repair shop.

By changing the toe setting he is creating other alignment problems. This could create weird wear problems on the tires and could dreate weird steering problems and compromise the emergancy braking capability of the car.

Why would anyone lower a little piece of crap enonomy car like a Cavalier anyway?