Front end rattling bad when at higher speeds

[Daniel Mahaffey]

Hello,

Long time viewer of the ETCG and ETGC1 videos which has taught me alot and given me enough confidence to start doing alot more repairs then I would have even though about before. The issue that I am having well my mother is having with her car is around 60 to 70 miles per hours the whole front end starts shaking real bad. At first I though that it was the wheels out of balance so we took it to a shop and they balanced the wheels. The issue was still occurring after this to we checked the tie rod ends and ball joints and all were still good was also rotated the tires from front to back to see if the issues were with the tires themselves and still the front end rattled. One shop told us that it could be the rack and pinion but I do not know how to diagnose a failing rack and pinion. There are no leaks at the rack and the steering is still pretty responsive and it is not hard to steer either. How else can you tell if the rack and pinion is bad as the part is almost $300.

Thanks in advanced for any help that you can provide.

Topic

[college man]

Its something that rotates most likely. Tires were my first choice second would be a cv axle.

http://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/determining-the-causes-of-vehicle-vibrations

[Daniel Mahaffey]

So according to this article I did not see anything mentioned about the rack and pinion is this because it will not cause this symptom at all? I did forget to mention that we have replaced one axle but the other one doesn’t seem to have gone bad.

[college man]

Unless the rack is broken I cant see how it would vibrate. Try putting the front on jack
stands and run the car in gear not at 70 but let the wheels spin to see if you can see
whats shaking.

[ryan stuvick]

was the vibration prior to the cv change? some especially rebuilds are bad out of the box

[Daniel Mahaffey]

Yes the vibration was occurring before the cv axle was changed.

[Justin]

We had a case where we went through 8 bad cv axles from autopart international before we got a good one.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Walter Cheryba]

Check the run out of the front brake rotors; how free are the caliper slides/guides/boots/pins; is there any play in the front wheel bearings; are they torqued properly; check the condition of all the control arm bushings.
One last item, years ago I had a friend with a Mitsubishi Galant he bought used, had similar condition as you, replaced tires, did lots of front end work, lots of everything, turned out to be (4) bent steel wheels, flexed at the center where they mount to the hubs, they’d balance OK but on the road oh my! He replaced all 4 wheels with alloy aftermarket ones and the car was smooth as silk. Ya just never know!!!!

Good luck with this!

[Daniel Mahaffey]

I appreciate everyone’s help on this one and apologize that it me awhile to get back to you all. I ended up taking it to a shop and they said that the issue was with the tires and inner tie rod ends. We had them replace the tires as they were the main suspect of the technician and us as well. After the tires were replaced the shaking did calm down but was still there pretty bad so I replaced the inner tie rod ends and this completely resolved the issue so the issue was the combination of the two.

[college man]

[quote=”importnerd” post=158862]I appreciate everyone’s help on this one and apologize that it me awhile to get back to you all. I ended up taking it to a shop and they said that the issue was with the tires and inner tie rod ends. We had them replace the tires as they were the main suspect of the technician and us as well. After the tires were replaced the shaking did calm down but was still there pretty bad so I replaced the inner tie rod ends and this completely resolved the issue so the issue was the combination of the two.[/quote]

Glad you worked it out. 🙂

[Jake F]

This is really good to know for vibration issues that tire companies can’t resolve! In the future for your rack play, you can test it with two people. Steering wheel straight, hood open and car off, have someone move the steering wheel slightly left and right while you adore your fine rack in back of the engine block. If there’s a lot of play, it’s typically the insulator bushing gone bad. Thanks for the follow up!

[Author]

Replies