I've noticed a bit of vibration in the steering, and on inspection I noticed what I think is the tyre rod was knocking when I pushed it towards the motor then the opposite way. I am seeing the mechanic on thursday but is this a serious thing? Is it gonna cost me heaps or will I be able to do it myself?

Cheers,
heb.

 

Common things to get this are the tie rod ends, idler arm or pitman arm being severely worn. I think most anyone could manage to change them so long as they have some tools and a haynes manual. The trick is figuring out which one (or more) is the problem.

 

To Check the Tie rods, reach under the car and grab it frimly. Pull it back and forth as hard as you can. there should be no play between the knuckle arm and the tie rod. Do the same for the rest of the linkage. An alternative is to take the car in for an alignment. the mechanic will have to tell you which tie rod is bad because he won't be able to align the car. If one's bad the rest are probably on there way to. The orginal tie rods had no grease fitting. I replaced mine with a set of aftermarket tie rods with grease fittings for about $40

 

I recently solved a lot of wobble, vauge steering, and knocking noises from the front end by replacing the ball joints, all the bushings, and the tie rods. Honestly, it's a pretty easy process to get to all of those and replace them. Like magnanimus said, get replacement tie rod ends that have grease fittings, and buy (or rent/borrow) a pickle fork. (I bought mine for about $10 at Advance Auto.)

Don't go cheap and try to re-use the sleeves, either. You're just going to frustrate yourself. They're only a couple bucks, and it'll look so nice and shiny.

I would estimate that if you had all the parts, the pickle fork, a hammer, and a good socket set with a breaker bar, you could probably replace the entire steering linkage in a Saturday, with time to take the car to the shop for a good alignment.

 

when you go to any shop to do an alignment they're gonna try and stick you with all kinds of bullshit. Oh you need to replace this and this and this so we can align your car for a mere 600$. BAH

 

put the parts on yourself, save the money and get an alignment.

 

great thx for the feedback. I think I know which one is the tyre rod, but when yanking on things underneath everything seems tight. Its when I play with the disc that I can hear the knock. Or with the wheel on its like I have lose wheel nuts. Thats actually what I thought it was originally until I got out the wheel wrench. Anywayz its going to a trusty mechanic thursday.

heb.

 

i've got knocking on the front end under cornering and bumps... which this thread has been helpful with..


but i also have some knocking noise coming from about midway down the length of the car when i corner (especially left). not sure what it is, but i'm 90% sure my transmission mount needs changed. could that be what's causing it?

/edit: i also noticed a bit of funky behavior under hard cornering... the car becomes a bit unpredictable... it has 215k mi on it so i'm sure a bunch of stuff needs replaced... i'm just not sure where to start.

 

If you hear knocking when you move the wheel/tire side to side, it's your wheel bearings - not your suspension or steering.

Each front rotor has 2 wheel bearings, an inside, an outside, and a grease seal that is captured on the spindle by a castellated nut and a cotter pin through a hole in the end of the spindle. This is all covered by a stamped steel cover that you see when you remove the front wheel/tire.

Check to be sure that you're replacing the right parts, or you could end up spending several hundred dollars in suspension and steering parts only to find that you still have the problem, have no more money for parts, and could have fixed the REAL issue for about $40 and an hours worth of time. HTH, and report back,