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Fortunately, its a long weekend! Had a new set of rubber put on the 245 today and asked them to do an alignment since there was some mild but odd wear on the left front tire. Well, they drive it up on the alignment rack, jack up the front and then inspected things. Well, the left front wheel had a ton of slop so he tugged on the tie rod and the outer end joint separated completely! The inner tie rod on the left side also had a bunch of play. Inspection of the right side inner and outer showed minor slop in both joints but were still too bad for an alignment job.
Now here is the kicker, I replaced all four tie rod ends and ball joints 2 years/32K miles ago with brand new TRW parts, I even have the receipts to prove it! I have always trusted TRW suspension and steering parts so I'm not ready to condemn them just yet. Now to the questions...
1: Could these excessive tie rod end failures be hastened by running non-standard tires (205x50x16) and or lowering springs and full poly bushings along with a 25mm sway bar?
2: Can the outrageously pot hole littered street of downtown Raleigh have contributed to the joint failure(s)? Please note that I did hit one pot hole so hard that the U-bolts holding the steering rack to the cross member deformed and stretched!
3: Has TRW just thrown their name to the wind and are now sourcing all their parts from the lowest bidder in China?
Seriously, I'm not trying to bash one of my favorite suspension component manufacturers and I am hoping that questions 1 and 2 are contributors rather than #3. Have any of you seen similar failures with or without suspension mods?
In any case, since I desperately need the car running and don't usually have the time to work on it, I picked up new Moog joints for about $80 a side (inner and outer). If Moog parts let me down in 2 years time, then I'll know it was a combo of #1 and #2!
Once again, please let me know if you have seen similar TRW part failures.
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92 245 250K miles, IPD'd to the hilt, 06 XC70, 00 Eclipse custom Turbo setup...currently taking names and kicking reputations!
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