Does anyone know what the symptoms are of an outer tie rod going out? My '97 Intrepid drives fine until I reach somewhere around 60-65 mph, then it starts to shake, the entire car, the steering-wheel especially. Then today I was looking at my tires and the passenger side front tire was warn down to the wires and the drivers side front tire is well on the way. What do I do and how much is it going to cost me?
jack it up in the air check the ball joint and tire rod ends and inner tie rods by having a buddy or family member turn the wheel in and up and down, if u notice no play in anything then it could be a wheel weight, and if not that it is craddle bushing u will notice them holding the subframe to frame if they are all worn out then u need to replace they are a tad expensive
My Trep had very similar vibrations, only noticed at upper highway speeds. My inner tie rod bushings were shot, that made a huge improvement, but I still had the vibration. I also had unevenly worn tires.
After I got a set of 02 or 03 ES wheels and got new michilen rubber put on my car the vibration finally went away. Altho I never knew for sure if I had a screwed up wheel or just bad tires, but the wheel and tires helped me out.
I would deffantly look at either getting your wheels balanced or replacing them along w/tires. But make sure tie rods are all good before replacing tires!
As explained above, jack up the car, grab the wheel horiizontally (at the wheel center level) and move it (rapid twists) without turning the wheel to see if there is any play. If there is a knock check outer and inner tie rods (you may need a friend to help).
Any play can be easily felt on both ends. Also position your hands verically on the wheel to check control arm (ball joint play).
Check your alignment afterwards (sounds like you need that) and most of all your tire balance. Wheels out of balance will kill your tie rods quickly. Looks like this is your primary issue.
Tie rods are fairly cheap to replace yourself, and not to hard on our cars. I did mine this july for inspection, 25$ each from autozone for inner or outers. And then you need an alignment so theres another 50-75$. But it fixed the symptoms i was having which sound exactly as you decided.
As explained above, jack up the car, grab the wheel horiizontally (at the wheel center level) and move it (rapid twists) without turning the wheel to see if there is any play. If there is a knock check outer and inner tie rods (you may need a friend to help).
Any play can be easily felt on both ends. Also position your hands verically on the wheel to check control arm (ball joint play).
Check your alignment afterwards (sounds like you need that) and most of all your tire balance. Wheels out of balance will kill your tie rods quickly. Looks like this is your primary issue.
This post is the best for checking your tie rod ends. The noise you hear at that speed is very consistant with an outer tie rod problem. It will only take a few minutes to check them and it's a very inexpensive problem to solve.
Inners are easily checked by unloading the tire and shaking it while noting play.
Outers may often not show play while jacked up since the angle changes from it's normal wear spot.
If you car has a 3 or 4 years on it's front end components most likely it needs inners and outers. Anti sway bar links are often worn by then too.
I guess I'll throw in what I found tonite on the wife's 2002 with 82k miles. When I drive the car, I occasionally hear a click/snap sound when I brake the car going in one direction, then change direction and reapply the brakes. The sound is louder than brake pads shifting in the calipers or calipers shifting on the rails. It sounded like some component in the suspension was shifting. I've looked around underneath it before looking for loose stuff. One time I did find a sway bar bracket loose, must have came that way from the factory.
But what I found tonite was play between the right side outer tie rod end and the adjuster sleeve - lotsa play. Tomorrow the wife is taking my Porsche to work and I'm stuck with the motorcycle - hope it doesn't rain. There is so much play between the tie rod end and adjuster sleeve I won't even risk driving it anywhere. None of the local parts places have the adjuster sleeve, but can get one in by noon tomorrow. $35 for the tie rod end and $35 for the adjuster sleeve. youch! I'm sure this wasn't what was making the noise tho.
When it rains it poors, Saturday I figured it was time to do the front struts and left tie rod end on the Porsche. Those parts only went 40k miles.
I don't know why, but every time i tighten my inner rods up, a couple days later they get loose and start to wobble @ 30mph & again @ 80mph... anyone have a solution for this?
Make sure to get an alignment. You have to remove the wheels, use an open end wrench to hold the tie rod sleeve from turning, use another to tihten the jamb nut with enough torque to keep it from coming loose. Let an alignment shop do this for you, just make sure they adjust the tie rod end so its parallel with the ground (not tilted).
If the jamb nut was loose it will eventually wear the tie rod and sleeve thread.
You must also hold the sleeve in such a manner it will be not tilted to one side after you tighten.
I put a new tie rod end and adjuster sleeve on it tonite. Some of the confusion may be cause this is a 2002 and here we are in a 1st gen forum. My fault, I did a search on 'tie rod' while I was in the 2nd gen forum and assumed any hits I got were limited to that forum. I didn't notice until after I posted a response that I was in the 1st gen area.
On the 2002 (and probably all the 2nd gen cars), the tie rod end threads into a slotted sleeve which in turns threads into the tie rod itself. A tension/friction clamp is used to keep all this stuff from rotating. Well, the last time the car was aligned, the dude left the clamp loose. This let the threaded end of the tie rod end rattle around inside of the adjuster sleeve.
After taking things apart and inspecting, I probably could have reused the old parts and just tightened up the clamp. There wasn't too much wear on the threaded parts. But I already had the new parts and rather than worry about hidden damage I just replace them.
So, when I get the car back from a different (than last time) alignment shop, I'll have to put wrenches on all the bolts under there to make sure nothing was left loose.
when mine went out, at first the steering wheel would pull very hard to the left, like youd have to turn the wheel a quarter of a turn just to keep the car going straight, then after awhile it feels like you hit patches of ice, also when you turn the wheel from left to straight to right, your will definately feel something. My car also felt like the entire wheel was bent, cause the car to kinda bounce along the road.
Also i noticed like you said horrible uneven tire wear, on side was worn down to the steel, the other was kinda worn on the right side of the tire and not the left
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