Alignment and Tie Rods

[hopeforfish]

Hi I have a 95 Chevy Lumina and it shakes when I get over 60 mph. I know that I need the alignment done but do you think the tie rods are going to need to be done also?

What am I looking at cost wise?

Thanks

[Get'n Jiggy]

Shakes from 50-60 MPH are usually caused by wheel balance. Wheel imbalance can be caused by misalignment. There's no way to tell if you need front end parts without an inspection. Many tire shops will do a free front end check,I'd take it to a couple and get estimates before doing any work.

[Jeremy airjer W]

Vibrations are not caused by miss alignment. Common out of alignment symptoms would be irregular tire wear, Steering wheel off center but still drive straight, and vehicle pulls lightly to the left or right if you let go of the steering wheel. You may be surprised to find out that hard pulls to the left or right are usually not alignment related. This is usually caused by the tires and referred to as radial pull. Swapping the front tires will either solve or cause the vehicle to pull the other way.

As far as front end parts, they will be inspected before the alignment is done.

[hopeforfish]

Thanks guys, I am getting the tires swapped out tomorrow, just had to pay a $200.00 vet bill and if it needs an alignment it will have to wait.

[spearchucker]

Thanks guys, I am getting the tires swapped out tomorrow, just had to pay a $200.00 vet bill and if it needs an alignment it will have to wait.

Were they worn out? They may have just needed to be balanced.

[hopeforfish]

Tie Rods do need to be replaced in the future but not right now. Tires on the car now have a more even wear to them and I have not driven much today but it is a much better ride.

Thanks for the info.

[Jeremy airjer W]

Tires on the car now have a more even wear to them

?

[BobT]

I don't know how severe this vibration is but if cost is a concern you might want to rethink waiting to have it looked at. I understand the catch-22 that you may not feel you can afford it now but will you be able to afford a bigger bill later? If you don’t take care of it now, you could do more damage and the cost for repairs will grow dramatically. Spending under $100 now could save you many hundreds later and I’m not talking about some far distant future. Tire shimmy is hard on the front end of the vehicle and could potentially cause a serious accident endangering your life and anyone with you or around you.

I see this all the time with my neighboring farmers. They jury-rig minor problems to save time and money only to have to make very expensive time-consuming repairs later and then complain about how much it costs to maintain their equipment.

Here’s an example. One of my neighbors had noticed a bearing was going bad on his round baler. Rather than spending $30 and a half hour to install a new bearing he just gives it a shot of WD-40 or machine oil before using it. A bearing that is breaking down won’t last long no matter how well you lubricate it. He does some custom baling and naturally the bearing finally gave up right in the middle of harvesting someone’s hay. That was problem #1. The second problem was that it took the shaft with it. Now instead of a $30 repair, he pays a few hundred dollars for a new shaft, many hours to install, and about a day of lost production. Fortunately it was only about a day and he didn’t have other jobs that got delayed but in the mean time his customer’s hay is rapidly losing quality and value. What does that say about how he values his customers?

Another neighbor had a problem with the electrical system on his tractor. The problem was the voltage regulator and I told him to fix it before it costs him his batteries. It would have cost about $20-$30 for a new one and about 20 minutes to install but instead he just jumped his batteries to get the tractor started and if he charged them enough he could use his lights. Batteries kept at low charge state don’t last very long and pretty soon I noticed he was parking the tractor on a hill so he could get it rolling and pop the clutch. His batteries were toast and he couldn’t use it at night anymore either, which was a growing concern with winter and shorter days on its way.

When the weather got cold it wouldn’t work any more to roll it down the hill so now he was forced to fix it. Heavy-duty farm equipment batteries for his tractor cost over $300 a piece (I just priced them online at $319) and they were located under the cab floor so replacing them was not an easy project, especially when the outside temperatures hovered around the -10 degree mark. Fortunately, the battery cases didn’t bust open and spill acid all over when they froze or it would have cost him even more damage.

Instead of saving $20 and a few minutes of time in short-sleeve weather it ended up costing him nearly $700 and a couple hours of time working with heavy clothing and freezing fingers on cold steel.

There’s truth in the statement, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

[spearchucker]

????? I don't get it either. Did you get new tires, or just rotate them? How do you know the tire wear is better unless you put several thousand miles on the tires?

[Jeremy airjer W]

Bob, I got one for you. I had a guy tell me he had a check engine light on for 3 or four years and he didn't know why it was on or concerned about it, but now that it was flashing and the car is running rough he thought is was time to get it checked out. I told him its always cheaper to t least know why its on and deal with it from there. Anyways the check light was blinking because of a mis-fire but had been on for years because of an evap problem.

The evap problem was such a big problem that the warranty for the parts was extended by the manufacturer to 14 years or 150,000 miles. Had this customer had it looked at 3 or 4 years ago he would have likely had it fixed for free. Unfortunately he was over the mileage and would have cost him roughly $400 - $500 dollars.

[hopeforfish]

Now that I have better tires on and the tread depth is more even the shaking has gone away. The shop I had finish the job said I need the right and left outer tie rod ends but not right now. The shaking came from bad tires.

[BobT]

If your rod ends are going bad, I'd consider getting them taken care of as soon as you can. If you don't your tires will take on premature wear.

[spearchucker]

Now that I have better tires on and the tread depth is more even the shaking has gone away. The shop I had finish the job said I need the right and left outer tie rod ends but not right now. The shaking came from bad tires.

If your previous tires had uneven tread depth my guess is you have shocks that are bad as well causing the tire wear.