I nailed a massive pothole at night in the unlit streets of Seattle last week. I bent a forged rim and knocked things out of alignment. Somehow, miraculously, the tire survived. I put my winter wheels back on (had summer rims on when pothole was hit), and had an alignment done since hitting the pothole. I'm still get vibrations/bumpier ride when I'm going faster, especially on the freeway. I asked the dealer to visually check things out, not sure if they did but they didn't mention finding any issues. What else could have been impacted, shocks tierods, anything else? I guess I'll take it back and have them look at the back suspension in addition to the front drivers side where the impact was? This has been beyond annoying to diagnose.

 

These kinds of things are hard over the internet. But the most basic thing that would cause vibration at speed is wheel balancing or wheel damage. And you can't necessarily trust one human at one shop with one machine to rule that out. Also what's your definition of "going faster?" We're (I) going to need extreme precision here on all levels with all of your descriptions.

Anything can be damaged. Generally if it's *confirmed* you have vibration after a pot hole strike AND it's confirmed you ruled out your wheel/tire combo, then generally you're looking at hard point damage like a balljoint. A bent suspension arm will mess up your geometry but will not cause vibration. Same for tie rods. Unless the balljoint is busted. So yeah someone's going to have to inspect all the parts on a detailed level.

 

is it an oscillating sound? I hit a curb once and it was a wheel bearing

 

Unfortunately, something similar happened to me this morning. Dropped in a pothole in Baltimore. I usually avoid going there because the streets are typically horrendous.

Once I got out of the city I got up to 80mph for a short period on the way back. Luckily, there's no vibrations or anything. Car seems to ride just fine. But in stop-and-go, when initially moving forward or coming to a stop, I can hear something briefly sorta creaking. Almost like it's popping in and out of place or something. Gotta get it checked out.

 

I usually start with this flow chart

 

something similar happed to me and it was the front drivers side wheel hub that was damaged

 

I bent a wheel on a pothole before, emailed the city and they replaced the wheel for me.

Try it, can't hurt to inquire.

 

Yes, this is a very good idea as a lot of cities have a system in place to do stuff like this.

 

i hit a pothole last week in my 07 es350 and my car is a gem,. perfect condition nothing wrong except shocks were getting ready to go on front and just ordered some online and arrived a few weeks back. hit about an 18 inch dip on my passenger side and not an ordinary pothole, there was about a foot deep hole and what looked like overpoured dry pavement that was above and before the pothole, i did not see this un til later on passing by the same spot on a hwy here in Houston...the hit was worse than some totaled out car wrecks i have been in... the shocks gave out and i knew that this was going to be an issue... as the last few days it has gotten progressively worse and it feels like the steering is off, usually when alignment is off it pulls in one direction, but i can feel this sway from left to right... front wheel drive i get that with bad alignment an no shocks holding the springs for the smooth Lexus ride is going to be an issue but i do not know enough about the suspension to determine if alignment is just FUBAR'd or if there is more issues. i will say that it jsut missed my oilpan but bottom out the cat converter... i put my diagnostic tool and that cat went from hot at double norm temp about 400+ degree Fahrenheit top last time i plugged in today was at 788 degrees... but when i stop it will pull left and right at random i thought maybe a bent rim and maybe warped tire but that isn't the case and the steering column clicks bad on the full turn ... any suggestions to diagnose before i get robbed by a mechanic????????? i already had planned to replace the shocks and was waiting for the autozone my son works at to get the tool used to hold the springs in place while i replace them so i really could use some of you guys input