My mom bought a 03 Taurus for a couple hundred dollars that has some damage, the previous owner hit a curb with it and bent the right side inner tie rod and possibly the lower control arm, my dad says the hole in the frame where the bolt goes down through the lower control arm looked oblong or stretched and thanks the impact pulled and stretched the hole.

My thought is that they made it that way to make the back end of the lower control arm easier to slide into place to bolt. But I have never seen it so that is just theoretical.

In the pic, the end circled in red is the end I'm talking about, where it mounts on the car, does the bolt hole have an oblong shape?