ball joints or tie-rod ends bad??

[HossV6]

I posted on here a few weeks back about bump steer and someone suggested it could be bad ball joints or tie-rod ends. I am begining to think there is something wrong with the front end. basically my problem is my car has quite a bit of bump steer its all over the road, even the little dips in the road will cause the car to vear out of its lane. also if i go around a turn and straighten out and take my hands off the wheel it will vear to the side i just took the turn. When braking it will pull to one side. the side it pulls to changes each time, usally to the side i took the last turn at (if i had turned right, it will vear right while braking) this all happens even though i have all ready straightened out the car before braking. Im thinking its tie-rod ends but i would like to get some opinions before i take it into the shop.

[FirebirdGT]

Re: ball joints or tie-rod ends bad??

What size tires?

[HossV6]

Re: ball joints or tie-rod ends bad??

stock..... 245/50/16

[kristen]

Re: ball joints or tie-rod ends bad??

stupid question, is your sway bar connected????

[HossV6]

Re: ball joints or tie-rod ends bad??

stupid question, is your sway bar connected????

i hope so. i never took it off or did anything to it. this problem im having seems to be getting worse as i let it go. i notice that i can hear some knocking/popping sounds when im driving slow through a gravel parking lot a school

[ssms5411]

Re: ball joints or tie-rod ends bad??

Don't know how many miles you have on your car, but if you do I would just do your outter tie end rods and lower ball joints. It sounds to me like it is your lower ball joints. But like I said if you have alot of miles on your car and can do it yourself to save on labor. Do them all at once, tie end rods( real easy to do), lower ball joints (pain in the @ss sometimes) upper ball joints (not to bad, just have to cut or drill out the rivets). The good thing about doing them is they will have grease fittings, so you should get more life out of them. I still don't know why GM didn't put grease fitting on the stock suspension componets. Cheap b@stards. Good Luck

[HossV6]

Re: ball joints or tie-rod ends bad??

Don't know how many miles you have on your car, but if you do I would just do your outter tie end rods and lower ball joints. It sounds to me like it is your lower ball joints. But like I said if you have alot of miles on your car and can do it yourself to save on labor. Do them all at once, tie end rods( real easy to do), lower ball joints (pain in the @ss sometimes) upper ball joints (not to bad, just have to cut or drill out the rivets). The good thing about doing them is they will have grease fittings, so you should get more life out of them. I still don't know why GM didn't put grease fitting on the stock suspension componets. Cheap b@stards. Good Luck

i was hoping it wasnt ball joints even though i thought it might be. i have about 110K on the car so im sure they could use replacing. i have been thinking about doing the work myself since im going to be installing my eibach pro kit and it will need an alignment anyway. how hard are these bottom ball joints going to be? i will probably only do the bottoms since after talking to my mechanic he said uppers almost never go bad. im worried about driving the car with the bad ball joints.. i just watched a kid pull into school with his mustang and drop a ball joint, sending the wheel into the fender. :eek: