more woes for my front end

bumpskier45

Registered User
Ok as per all of your instruction,I took my car to a alignment specialist. After hearing the front end guy at the dealer tell me the noise I could hear from my tires was just that I had an aggressive tire. Well took the specialist about 30 seconds of driving it to tell me my wheel bearings are bad. Well sure enough I swapped them out and the noise is gone.However now when I apply brake the car shakes pretty bad. When I changed the wheel bearings figured I may as well change the brake rotors too,I was told the rotors have a coating on them from the factory to keep them from rusting on the shelf that if not taken off can make your brakes grab and possibly do what I experienced. I took off the lair that was on there put on new ceramic brake pads,while I was installing the passenger side I noticed after shaking the whell left to right to make sure everything is tight like I always do,I noticed the inner tie rod end has about a 1/2 or so play before it makes the other side move all while the car is in the air of course. I told you all that to ask this,can that little bit of play produce the shake I get when I apply my brakes?
 
I doubt tie rod ends will cause a shake. Could cause some bumpsteer issues but I don't think shake.

Would help to know where you are feeling the shake from. Through the steering wheel? Suspension? Frame?
 
If a professional mechanic put on the previous pair of rotors, I doubt he or she would have left the packing grease on them. That's just not caring - it only takes a minute to remove it, and it could lead to a comeback if not done properly.

As for the inner tie rod - That needs to be fixed or alignment won't work. I would guess that you might notice some vibration with a bad inner tie rod.

However, warped (or hard spotted) rotors are the usual cause of a vibration while braking.

Two questions:

- Is the vibration in the steering wheel (turns left-right-left rapidly), felt in the whole car, or both?

- Have you driven it since changing the rotors? Has the symptom changed?
 
Seen badly warped rotors, brand new out of box more than once. Also been noticing that the cheap parts store brands don't last long anymore. I think it is low quality offshore material causing both. The higher quality drilled/slotted performance rotors seem to hold up much better over the miles. Worth the difference in price to me.

I could deff see the 1/2" play causing a vibration/all kinds of bad stuff going on in your frontend, a little suprizing it's only when applying the brakes tho.

Adam
 
Sorry, but I don't get why after all the work and at least two alignments, meaning at least 3 different people have checked the car, you still have issues and questions...

At this point, and yes I know you said you're isolated from experts, you need to turn it over to one regardless and let them sort it out (in person) completely - let them do all the work and don't accept it until it's right.
 
yes it is true I am not close to a major city,the ford dealer is 25 miles away that is also the place where I found the other guy who told me about the bearing.I should have never let it leave the ford dealer without it being right this is true,but he swore up and down it was right and I was not going to argue with him about it.The roters are brand new,I took that film they have on them off but I have not had an opportunity to test drive it due to this huge ice and snow storm that just blew through here. I will most likely have the guy that told me my noise was the bearings replace both inner tie rod ends for me and align it,I will not leave until its right. As to where it shakes its hard to tell really shakes the whole car to tell you the truth but the steering wheel goes bonkers for sure I would say that is where the shake is the worst,I am pretty sure it was that film or the new roters are warped,which is pretty sad. last resort to test that theory is to put on the old roters I know are ok.
 
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