Hey Guys!

The forum is finally fixed! I've been waiting patiently (more or less) to join since I bought my Crossfire a month ago. ('06 base roadster 6 speed) I got it at CarMax. I probably could have gotten a better deal elsewhere but this is my first car purchase and I've never dealt with loans or anything like that. I appreciated the stream-lined process. I also got the extended warranty (36/36) which seemed like a good deal.

Well, the weekend after I bought the car I went on a road trip to Carbondale (I'm in the Chicago burbs) which is about a 360 mile trip. This car is truly a pleasure to drive.

I'm accustomed to pretty bad road conditions around Chicagoland but I was not prepared for Carbondale. I hadn't owned the car for 48 hours yet and I hit a massive pothole (think 8 inches deep and 1.5 feet in diameter) at about 25 MPH. Well, my heart sank. I checked her out and everything seemed ok. On the trip back to Chicago, though, I noticed a small vibration at highway speeds. I brought the car back to the dealer to have it checked out. Apparently both of the passenger side wheels were bent. Of course, I didn't tell them about the pothole. They repaired both of the wheels and gave me a loaner car at no cost. When I got the car back it was pulling to the right quite a lot, so they did an alignment on it at no cost.

Well, the car is much better now, but it still doesn't feel quite right. It still intermittently pulls to the right a little bit at lower speeds. More disconcerting, however, is a slight burning smell. I can't decide whether it smells like burning tires or burning clutch. I only notice it when I come to a complete stop and it comes in through the air vents. I don't notice it after highway driving but do notice it after short, slow trips. For instance I can drive 1.5 blocks from my parking lot to the nearest stop sign and smell it, staying under 25 MPH.

So, sorry for the essay. That's been building up for a month. The burning smell wasn't there before I had the wheels repaired. What do you guys think about it? What about the repaired wheels? Would you trust them? Also, I'm not entirely confident in CarMax's repair abilities. Do you think they're missing an underlying problem?

I'll probably bring it back to them or someone more specialized but I'm looking for ideas/direction.

Thanks!

-Spencer

PS I've been driving stick for 4 years, and I'm pretty confident that I'm not abusing the clutch, but my previous car was a '98 VW Cabrio which had a very forgiving (also sloppy) 5 speed.