Frame Repair
How a Bent Frame Gets Straight Again: Measured, Pulled, and Measured Twice
A car that was hit hard enough to move its structure goes on the frame bench at Macarthur's shop in Valley Stream, is measured against the manufacturer's dimensions, is pulled or sectioned back to specification by the method the manufacturer requires, and is measured again. The second measurement is the one that counts, and it stays in your file. Call 516-362-5350 or have our own truck bring the car in.
Certifications and reviews
The Certifications Behind Every Frame Pull, and What Drivers Say About Macarthur on Google
Structural repair is the work manufacturers audit most closely, because a badly straightened rail does not protect anyone in the next crash. Macarthur is certified by Honda and Acura, Nissan, Infiniti, Hyundai, Kia, Mazda, and Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram, holds I-CAR Gold Class training recognition, and is an OEC certified provider. Every plaque is photographed on this site.
I got locked out my car on a cold snowy night and Alex came and unlock my car. He was very quick and professional. I would definitely use this towing company again.
Great timing and professionalism. The tow truck driver Carlos was experienced and helpful. I would recommend this company and Carlos to anyone.
Not the usual experience with a towing company. Everyone that I spoke to was polite and respectful and they towed my car with care. Hopefully I never need my car towed again, but if I do, this is who I will be using!
- 16Certifications on the shop wall
- I-CARGold Class training recognition
- 1,800+Google reviews, 5.0 average as of Oct 2026
- LicensedDMV # 7110205 · DCA # 1389419
- 1 ShopTow fleet and body shop, Valley Stream
- 24/7Our own trucks bring the car in
The Google reviews below come from the towing side of the business, where most drivers meet Macarthur first, usually on the night the frame got bent. The body shop is where many of those cars go next. If the shop has straightened yours, a few words on Google help the next driver with a car that will not track straight.
Drive one of the certified brands? The pull follows that manufacturer's procedure.
- Frame Repair
- Frame Straightening
- Unibody Repair
- Frame Shop
- Structural Repair
- Frame Alignment
- Collision Repair
- Body Shop
- Frame Bench
- Certified Shop
- I-CAR Gold Class
- Auto Body
Unibody or Full Frame: Which One Your Car Has and Why It Changes How It Is Repaired
Most cars, crossovers, and minivans on the road are unibody: the body shell is the structure, and there is no separate frame underneath. Pickups, large SUVs, and vans still ride on a full ladder frame with the body bolted on top. Both can be bent in a crash, both can be measured and straightened, and the manufacturer's procedure for each is different.
The word "frame" gets used for both, and the repair is not the same, so here is the difference in plain terms before anything else on this page.
Unibody
The floor, the rails under the engine, the aprons beside it, the pillars, the rockers under the doors, and the rear rails are all welded into one shell. Crash energy is designed to travel through specific paths in that shell and crumple in specific zones. When a hit moves any of it, the whole shell can be out of square, which is why a front-end collision can leave a rear door that will not latch. Repair means anchoring the shell to a bench, measuring it at the manufacturer's reference points, and moving or replacing the parts that are out.
Full frame
A ladder of two long rails joined by crossmembers, with the cab and bed or body bolted on top through rubber mounts. Pickups, the largest SUVs, and commercial vans and cutaways are built this way. A bent ladder frame is measured the same way, but the pull is usually heavier, the body often comes off or is unbolted at the mounts, and the manufacturer has strict limits on which sections can be straightened and which must be replaced. Heavy duty frames on our commercial customers' trucks fall in this category.
Subframes and cradles
Even a unibody car has bolted-on subframes carrying the engine and the suspension. A hit can bend a subframe without moving the shell, or move both. Each is measured separately, and a bent subframe is usually replaced rather than straightened because it locates the suspension and the steering.
Not sure what your car has? Tell us the year, make, and model and we will say.
Signs the Structure Moved: Doors, Gaps, Steering, Tires, and the Noise You Did Not Have Before
After a hit, structure damage shows up in ways that have nothing to do with the dented panel: a door that needs a lift to close, a hood or trunk gap wider on one side, a steering wheel off center with the car going straight, a pull to one side, tires wearing on one edge, or a new creak over bumps. Any one of these after a collision means the car gets measured before it gets painted.
The outside of the car lies. A bumper cover springs back, a fender can be bolted on straight, and the car can look repaired while the structure behind it is still out of square. These are the things that give it away.
Doors, hood, and trunk. A door that drops when opened, needs a shove to latch, or shows a tight gap at the top and a wide one at the bottom means the pillar or the rocker moved. A hood that sits high on one corner or a trunk that will not seal means the rails or the rear body moved.
Steering and tracking. A steering wheel that is off center while the car goes straight, or a car that pulls, drifts, or wanders after a hit. An alignment shop may tell you it cannot bring the car into specification, which is the clearest sign of all: the suspension mounting points are no longer where the factory put them.
Tires. Uneven wear on the inside or outside edge within weeks of a collision. The alignment angles are set by where the structure holds the suspension, and when the structure moves, the angles go with it.
Noises and fit. New creaks or pops over bumps, a windshield that cracks for no reason, weatherstrips that no longer seal, a sunroof that binds. Each is the shell flexing in a way it was not designed to.
The invisible one. Sometimes there is no symptom yet. A rail kinked an inch behind a repaired bumper will not show until the next hit, when it fails to crumple where it should. That is why any collision with a reinforcement bar or a radiator support involved gets the car on the bench, symptoms or not. The collision repair page covers how the decision is made at teardown.
Doors not closing right after the hit? That is a measurement, not a guess.
On the Bench: How the Structure Is Measured Against the Manufacturer's Dimensions
The car is anchored to a frame bench at its pinch welds or frame rails, and an electronic measuring system reads the position of dozens of factory reference points, holes, bolts, and edges whose exact locations the manufacturer publishes, and compares them to specification. The result is a printout showing which points are out, in which direction, and by how much, before anyone pulls on anything.
Measuring is the part of frame repair people never see and the part that makes the rest honest. Here is what happens.
Anchoring. The car is clamped to the bench so it cannot move while force is applied. On a unibody that means the pinch welds along the rockers; on a full frame, the rails themselves. The bench is the fixed reference everything is measured from.
The reference points. Every manufacturer publishes body dimensions: the three-dimensional position of specific holes, studs, and edges on the underbody and upper body, relative to each other. The measuring system's targets go on those points, and the system reads where each one actually is.
The printout. The screen and the printout show each point against specification, with the deviation in millimeters and the direction. A rail pushed back and up, a strut tower leaning in, an apron shifted sideways. This is the map for the repair, and it is what the insurer sees when structural labor is on the estimate.
Upper body too. Damage does not stop at the floor. Strut towers, the cowl, the roof rails, and the pillars are measured when the hit was high enough to reach them, which it usually is on a side impact.
Before and after. The same measurement is taken when the work is done. The after-printout, within the manufacturer's tolerance at every point, is the proof the repair is finished and is kept with the file. The frame section on the body shop page puts this step in the sequence of the whole repair.
Want to see the numbers? The before and after printouts are part of your file.
Pull It Back or Cut It Out: How the Manufacturer's Procedure Decides, and Why High-Strength Steel Changes the Answer
Mild steel that bent can usually be pulled back to specification with controlled force. High-strength and ultra-high-strength steels, which modern cars use around the passenger compartment, lose strength when bent and re-bent or when heated, and the manufacturer's procedure says they are replaced, not straightened. Macarthur follows the procedure for the exact part on the exact car, and the estimate shows which decision was made for each section.
Thirty years ago a frame technician could pull almost anything. Today the car tells him what he is allowed to touch, and ignoring it produces a car that looks straight and is not safe.
What can be pulled. Mild steel rails, aprons, and floor sections that bent without kinking or tearing. The pull is made cold, in small increments, with the measuring system live, so the metal is moved to specification and not past it. Heat is used only where the manufacturer allows it, and on many modern structures that is nowhere.
What must be replaced. Any high-strength or ultra-high-strength steel component that deformed: the pillars, the rockers, the roof rails, parts of the rails and the cross-members, depending on the car. These are boron and martensitic steels formed hot at the factory, and bending them back leaves them brittle. The manufacturer's body repair manual identifies them by location, and the certified shop has that manual for the car on the bench.
Sectioning. Where a replacement is allowed to be partial, the manufacturer defines exactly where the cut is made, how the new piece overlaps or butts the old, and how it is joined. Cutting anywhere else moves the crumple zone. Where sectioning is not allowed, the whole part is replaced at its factory seams.
Aluminum. Hoods, doors, fenders, and on some vehicles the structure itself. Aluminum does not pull like steel and cannot be heated like steel; most structural aluminum is replaced, and it is kept separate from steel in the shop to avoid contamination.
On the estimate. Each structural part is listed with the decision: straighten, section, or replace, and the labor the manufacturer's procedure calls for. The parts section on the body shop page explains how replacement parts are sourced.
Drive a certified brand? The repair manual for your car is in the shop.
Welding, Brazing, Bonding, and Riveting: Putting the Structure Back Together the Way It Was Built
Replacement structure is attached by the method the manufacturer specifies for that joint on that car: resistance spot welds that replicate the factory welds, MIG brazing on certain high-strength steels, structural adhesive, or self-piercing rivets on aluminum. The wrong method on the wrong steel weakens the joint, which is why a certified shop follows the procedure instead of its habits.
The factory joined the structure with thousands of spot welds, lines of adhesive, and in newer cars rivets and laser welds. A repair has to put strength back where the factory put it, and the tools and the training to do that are what the certifications on the wall represent.
Spot welding. A squeeze-type resistance spot welder reproduces the factory welds, nugget by nugget, in the same locations and count. On high-strength steels it is often the only welding the manufacturer allows, because it puts less heat into the metal than a MIG weld.
MIG brazing. On some ultra-high-strength steels the manufacturer calls for brazing with a silicon-bronze wire, which joins at a lower temperature than welding and does not destroy the steel's heat treatment. It is a specific skill and a specific procedure.
Structural adhesive. Many joints are bonded as well as welded, or bonded and riveted on aluminum. The adhesive is applied to prepared surfaces, clamped, and cured, and it is part of the structure's strength, not a sealer.
Rivets. Self-piercing rivets and flow-drill screws on aluminum structures, set with the manufacturer's tooling in the manufacturer's pattern.
Corrosion protection. Every bare edge, weld, and cut gets weld-through primer, seam sealer, and cavity wax so the repaired section does not rust from the inside in three winters. That step is in the procedure too, and it is in the estimate.
Ask how the new section will be joined. The answer is in the manufacturer's manual.
After the Structure Is Straight: Suspension, Steering, Alignment, and the Calibration That Follows
A straight body with a bent control arm still pulls. Once the structure measures within specification, the suspension and steering parts the hit may have bent are inspected and replaced, the car is aligned to the manufacturer's angles, and any cameras or radar that mount to the repaired structure are recalibrated. Then the car is driven before it is called done.
Frame repair is the first half of the job. The second half is everything the frame holds.
Suspension. Control arms, knuckles, tie rods, struts, and the subframe they bolt to take the same hit the structure did. Bent parts are obvious on the bench; slightly bent parts show up at the alignment rack as angles that cannot be brought in. Those are replaced, not shimmed.
Wheels and tires. A bent wheel from the impact will not balance and will not hold alignment. Wheels are checked for runout and tires for sidewall damage before the car goes to alignment.
Alignment. Four-wheel alignment to the manufacturer's specification, printed before and after. On a car whose structure was moved, this is also a check on the frame work: if the angles come in with the adjusters near center, the mounting points are where they should be.
Calibration. Forward cameras, radar, and sensors that mount to the radiator support, the bumper, or the windshield are recalibrated after a structural repair that moved any of them, so lane-keeping and automatic braking see straight. The safety systems section on the collision repair page explains why.
The test drive. Straight road, braking, steering return to center, no pulls, no noises. A technician who did not do the work drives it and signs it off against the estimate.
A straight frame is proven on the alignment rack, not the paint booth.
Frame Repair Through Insurance: Structural Labor, the Measurement the Adjuster Needs, and Total-Loss Math
Structural repair is the most expensive labor on a collision estimate, and insurers approve it against evidence: the measuring printout showing which points are out and the manufacturer's procedure showing what is required. Macarthur provides both. Because structural work drives the repair cost, it is also what pushes a car toward a total loss, and the estimate tells you honestly which side of that line the car is on.
Frame repair and insurance claims are tied together, because the structure is where the money and the safety both are.
What the adjuster sees. The before-measurement printout, the photographs of the damage at teardown, and the procedure page from the manufacturer's repair manual for each structural operation. That is how structural labor and sectioning are approved rather than argued about. The estimate section on the body shop page explains how the write-up is built.
Supplements. Structural damage is nearly always a supplement item, because it is not visible until the bumper, the fender, and the lamps are off and the car is measured. Covered damage is covered whether it was in the first estimate or not. The insurance claim repair page goes through supplements step by step.
Your right to choose. Under New York Insurance Law section 2610 you choose the shop. For structural work that matters more than anywhere, because the difference between a certified shop and a cheap one is invisible until the next accident. Tell the adjuster the car is at Macarthur Auto Body and Towing in Valley Stream.
Total loss. When structural labor, parts, and refinish approach the car's value, the insurer may total it. Our estimate is written to the procedure with nothing padded, so the number is defensible either way, and the shop will tell you honestly whether repairing the car you have makes sense. The total loss section on the collision repair page explains what you can do if you disagree.
Tell the adjuster the car is at Macarthur. We send the measurements with the estimate.
Full-Frame Pickups, Vans, and Commercial Trucks: Heavier Pulls, Body-Off Repairs, and Getting the Truck Back to Work
Pickups, large SUVs, work vans, and cutaway trucks ride on a ladder frame that takes heavier force to straighten and has its own manufacturer limits on what can be pulled. Macarthur measures and repairs these on the same bench, unbolts or lifts the body where the procedure requires, and tows the truck in and out on its own heavy duty wreckers.
A bent frame on a work truck is a truck that is not working, so these repairs are planned around getting it back. The frame on a pickup or a van is thick mild steel in most sections, which can be pulled, with hydroformed or high-strength sections near the cab that often cannot. The manufacturer's manual says which, and the measuring printout says how far it moved.
Many frame repairs on trucks require the bed to come off or the cab mounts to be loosened so the frame can be anchored and pulled without the body fighting it. Rear-end hits on pickups commonly kink the rails behind the axle; front hits push the horns and the crossmember that carries the radiator and the bumper. Each is measured, each is pulled or sectioned per the manual, and the body is remounted on new mounts where the old ones were crushed. Commercial vans and cutaways with aluminum or fiberglass bodies are repaired to the body builder's specification once the chassis is straight. The heavy duty towing side of the business brings the truck in and takes it back, and the commercial section on the body shop page explains how fleet accounts are run.
Truck frame bent? Our own wrecker brings it in and the estimate is written the day it arrives.
Frame Repair for Drivers Across Nassau County and the Queens Line, on One Bench in Valley Stream
The frame bench is at 170 East Lincoln Avenue in Valley Stream. A car whose structure moved should not be driven, so most of these come in on a Macarthur flatbed from anywhere in Nassau County, the Queens neighborhoods on the county line, or the Suffolk towns just across it, at any hour. Every town has its own frame repair page.
A car hit in Valley Stream, Lynbrook, Elmont, Franklin Square, West Hempstead, Hempstead, Malverne, Rockville Centre, Oceanside, Baldwin, Freeport, Long Beach, Island Park, or the Five Towns around Cedarhurst, Lawrence, Woodmere, and Hewlett rides the flatbed to the bench, and so does one across the line in Laurelton, Rosedale, Springfield Gardens, Cambria Heights, St. Albans, Queens Village, Jamaica, or Far Rockaway.
From central and eastern Nassau, Garden City, Mineola, Westbury, Uniondale, East Meadow, Levittown, Hicksville, Plainview, Bethpage, Farmingdale, Wantagh, and Massapequa, from the north shore towns of Great Neck, Manhasset, Port Washington, Glen Cove, and Syosset, and from Amityville, Melville, and Huntington on the Suffolk side, the car comes in the same way and goes home on its own wheels, straight. The full list is on the locations page.
Find your town and its frame repair page.
More Body Shop Services From the Same Shop
Collision Repair
From fender benders to major damage, repaired to pre-accident condition.
Auto Body Repair
Dents, scrapes, rust, and panel replacement.
Auto Painting
Spot repair to full repaints, matched to the factory color.
Auto Glass Replacement
Windshields, door glass, and back glass replaced.
Bumper Repair
Cracked, scraped, or pushed-in bumpers repaired or replaced.
Dent Repair
Door dings, hail, and creased panels.
One shop covers every repair on the list.
Questions Drivers Ask About Frame Repair
- How do I know if my frame is bent?
- Doors that need a lift to close, hood or trunk gaps wider on one side, a steering wheel off center while driving straight, a pull or drift, tires wearing on one edge, or new creaks over bumps after a collision. Bring the car in and it gets measured against the manufacturer's dimensions.
- Can a bent frame be repaired, or does the car need a new one?
- Most can be repaired. Mild steel sections are pulled back to specification; high-strength steel sections are replaced or sectioned per the manufacturer's procedure. The estimate shows which was done for each part.
- What is the difference between a unibody and a frame?
- A unibody car's body shell is its structure. A pickup or large SUV has a separate ladder frame with the body bolted on. Both are measured and straightened on the bench, with different procedures.
- How is the frame measured?
- The car is anchored to a frame bench and an electronic measuring system reads the position of factory reference points and compares them to the manufacturer's published dimensions. The printout shows each point's deviation before and after the repair.
- Why can't you just pull everything back?
- High-strength and ultra-high-strength steels lose strength when bent and re-bent or heated. The manufacturer's procedure identifies which sections must be replaced instead of straightened, and a certified shop follows it.
- Will the car be as strong as it was?
- When the manufacturer's procedure is followed, including the specified replacement parts and joining methods, the repair restores the structure to the design. That is what the certifications on the wall audit.
- Do you repair aluminum structures?
- Yes. Aluminum structural parts are generally replaced rather than pulled, joined with rivets and adhesive per the manufacturer, and kept separate from steel in the shop.
- Is my car safe to drive with a bent frame?
- No. A car whose structure moved may not track, brake, or protect you properly. Call 516-362-5350 and our flatbed brings it in.
- Will my insurance cover frame repair?
- Collision coverage covers structural damage from a covered accident. The insurer approves structural labor against the measuring printout and the manufacturer's procedure, both of which we provide.
- Does frame damage make the car a total loss?
- Not by itself. The insurer compares the full repair cost to the car's value. Structural labor is a large part of that cost, so it can push a car toward total loss. Our estimate is written to the procedure so the number is honest either way.
- Do you align the car after the frame repair?
- Yes. Bent suspension and steering parts are replaced, the car is aligned to the manufacturer's angles, and cameras or radar on repaired structure are recalibrated.
- Can you tell the frame was repaired afterward?
- A repair done to the manufacturer's procedure, with factory joining methods and corrosion protection, is not visible. The before and after measurements in your file are the record of it.
- Do you repair pickup and truck frames?
- Yes. Pickups, large SUVs, work vans, and cutaway trucks are measured and repaired on the same bench, with the body unbolted or lifted where the procedure requires. Our heavy duty wreckers bring them in.
- How long does frame repair take?
- It depends on how far the structure moved, whether sections are replaced, parts availability, and insurer approval. You get a realistic window once the car is measured and the plan is approved.
- Where is the shop?
- 170 East Lincoln Avenue, Valley Stream, NY 11580. Shop hours are Monday through Friday 8 AM to 5 PM and Saturday 9 AM to 12 PM. Towing to the shop runs around the clock.
Did not see your question? Ask the estimator.
Call Macarthur for a Frame Measurement in Valley Stream
Measured before, pulled to the procedure, measured after. Our own flatbed brings the car in at any hour.
Call 516-362-5350