Tie Rods and Alignment

JFST said:

Actually I thoroughly enjoyed that class and my shop teacher was a 30 year ASE technician who could tell you about any engine ran on steam, diesel, gas, corn fuel, or oil.

Furthermore are you talking about only the tie rod end? the inner tie rod could bend without having "visible movement."

PS: No need to be a ****.

Click to expand...

The part where not paying attention was in jest. Sorry I forgot a little wink emoticon, man up. I could go on and on about my shop teacher and his national awards in national highschool automotive troubleshooting contests, or state teacher of the year, how he became a mentor, helped get me grants, started my career, or how 20+yrs later I still call him to have dinner or beers when I visit home. But I digress, that's not important.

What's important is that tierods are basically a metal spherical ball in a rubber covered boot, grease filled plastic cup. I'm simplifying that for you.. but a tie rod can fail at 5 miles or 100k miles. There is no set maintenance schedule to them. You either have play on them or you don't. Often you check with a prybar and look for play. Or you have wierd shaking or tire wear issues that an alignment didn't solve. But you definitely do not replace each and every alignment. Thats a huge waste of money.

Hitting a pothole that damages wheels or tires, especially while in a turn, now that is a reason to inspect everything, but not blindly replacing parts just because you're performing an alignment. That said, has anyone told you how the factory alignment sucks? How the toe NEEDS to be adjusted to as near as 0.01 as you can get? Toe kills tires, not camber.

A bent inner can still be compensated for, with an alignment, or bent anything really. It's the play you can't account for.
You'll have to go through with an alignment regardless, to see if anything else needs replacing, and when it does get replaced, a final alignment performed.
And anyone that gives a damn about performance, gets an alignment just because factory specs suck so bad.

So, back to the original problem. You hit a big pothole, there is some funkiness you're noticing, but at the same time you've changed a lot of variables and you could just be paranoid... Get an alignment, ask for toe to be as close to 0.01. Not 0.1 nor 0.06. As close to or at 0.01. Then mention your pothole situation, and they can inspect further if anything needs replacing.