Outer Tie Rod Ends (penultimate task before PA inspection)

Worn tire

On the way home with the Freestyle, we noticed an imprecise feeling when we were steering and some tire squealing when we were headed around corners (my second oldest son was piloting).  The tire wear indicated poor alignment and when I lifted the car to check the brakes, I found that the front wheel had about 2mm of play, all of which pointed to some worn tie rod ends, and that, in fact, was the problem.

Indifference Curve

Indifference curves
Thanks wikipedia!

Shopping about for this part was interesting, there's all sorts of questions. How do you really know what's a quality part?  Is the brand name really an indicator of quality?  What about the reviews or what others have purchased?  Does a higher price translate into higher quality?  Will one site stock a collection of better parts and another sell lower quality parts, even if the lower quality parts cost more?

Economists attempt to model this behavior with the "indifference curve" mapping out where, given the blue budget line, the trade-off between good X and Y that would leave the consumer "indifferent" between the choices. The problem is, my basket of goods is just one thing and I don't have a clear idea of the price trade-offs. Adding to the problem, I'm not spending enough money to research the decision adequately, so the decision making will be far from a well-researched consumer activity.

Shopping About

For a part like this, controlling the steering, integral to the safety of the car, I purchased the cheapest option -- I'll get to why in a bit.  Here's what I found while shopping (data collected 9-Jul-2016, prices/url might have changed since then):

• Amazon: $27.78/each
• RockAuto.com: $16.67/each
• CarParts.com: $11.25/each or $21.38/pair
• JC Whitney: $20.72/each or $33.02/pair

Replacement tie rod end

I found CarParts.com by searching (I use Bing more than Google, still waiting for the return of AltaVista and/or Lycos) for the part number found at JC Whitney.  The part was the same and about 2/3 the price, which brings us to the real problem: at which point would I be indifferent making a trade-off between these different choices? An economist would say consumers behave rationally, using all available information to arrive at a purchasing decision.  That's bunk for the following reasons:

1. People approximate rational
   Some more than others, emotion plays a big part in how we act, I would posit a bigger part for people to assert otherwise.  Plus, we're so bombarded with marketing/ads I doubt we could make an unclouded decision.
2. Information itself is imperfect
   Information tends to be an incomplete mess requiring some amount of assessment on the part of the person.  People will perform this assessment imperfectly, and according to #1, not in a rational way.
3. "All available" information eludes market participants
   Consumers supposedly use "all available" information to make buying choices.  Here's the rub: most of the time we have a sub-set of data to interpret because we get board and give-up during the information collection process.
4. Agency issues on behalf of information suppliers
   Getting information about your parts from a parts vendor?  Guess what outcome they'd like?  The information available has likely been skewed by the information provider who has ulterior motives. 

Those who schlepped through Econ 101, instead of taking some other course, frequently mis-apply efficient market theory to consumer purchasing decisions, while those who mistakenly signed-up for Econ 201 would use behavioral theory to explain consumer actions.  Actual economists readily admit, for most purchases, consumer preference comes from marketing and advertising.

Then, it dawned on me: there's no quality licensing process for car parts, not even a Underwriters Laboratory that does independent testing to certify parts meet some minimum quality level.  A quality constraint placed by a rating agency would put a floor on the price, because, in theory, a vendor could sell a paper mache part for $1.

Cheapest?  Why?

At a decade and 300K miles, let's be honest, I think the tie rod ends will outlive the car, even if they're not the highest quality. There's something else at play: does a high-priced part imply a better part?  As a consumer, I lack the information to determine what part is "better" independent of the price.  In the case of the same part being roughly half price at a different vendor, there's not a strict linkage between price and quality.

Let's get on with it: Removal of the old Part

Loosened the wheel lug nuts, lifted and secured the car with jackstands, removed the tire and got to work.

Size of bolt

First step: Loosen (just a little) the retaining bolt on the inner tie rod.  I didn't have a wrench the correct size, so I used an adjustable wrench to hold the tie rod.
Next: Detach the outer tie rod from the steering knuckle.  For this one needs both a deep 21mm socket, a 21mm box-end wrench and a 10mm socket.

This is where I found that I didn't have a 21mm deep socket or wrench, so I needed to get those before I made any additional progress.  Returned from the store with  both tools for under $20.  Seems like the $20 bill is the new $5 bill and the $100 bill is the new $20 bill in terms of purchasing power.  Times have changed.  Anyway...

Driver's Side: No Problem

The driver's side presented no problems.

First job, loosen the locking nut on the tie rod, move it back about 1/4 or even less of a turn.  Do this first, because when the tie rod is attached to the steering knuckle it's much easier to apply the necessary force to break the tension on this bolt, as the bolt will be held in place by some rust and road grime as well as torque.

Next, I broke the tension on the tie rod nut with my newly purchased deep 21mm socket and a breaker bar, this required about the same amount of force as a tight lug nut.  Once the tension was broke, the nut and bolt rotated freely, as the opposite end is a ball joint in the tie rod end, so I needed to apply force to both the nut and bolt to complete the removal.  With a 21mm wrench holding the nut, a 10mm did the job of twisting the bolt, which turned freely due to the ball-joint construction of the tie-rod end.  Note:  the nut needed to be turned clock-wise to loosen when holding the bolt and rotating the nut.

With the driver's side completed in less than 10 minutes, even taking pictures, this job looks to be quicker than an oil change.

Passenger's Side: Six points too many

Not the best idea, this didn't work all that well

The passenger's side was a little more of a challenge.  The breaker bar did the hard work but then the 12 point 10mm socket that worked fine on the driver's side stripped while removing the bolt. At this point, I should have noticed that these parts were different (obviously cheaper), but it didn't register yet. Doused the nut in PB Blaster and waited.  Used vise grips to get a better hold, but they were slipping as well.  Seeing that I had a bit more of the bolt not stripped, a deep socket 6 point 10mm socket worked and I was able to wind back the bolt.  The part where the 10mm top of the nut failed looked to be a replacement part versus the driver's side which appeared to be original.

Starting to like the color sockets

The passenger's side tie rod was in much worse shape than the drivers. This is when I noticed that this was also a different part as well.  Tie rod ends should be replaced in pairs.  If one has worn to need a replacement, part on the other side is probably ready replacement as well.  The other aspect is the performance of the car itself, a nicely working tie rod on one side and a dodgey one on the other will result in odd handling.

Looking the parts, it appears like the driver's side is OEM and the passenger's side a replacement part.  The picture shows how the part has a torn boot, what you can't see is that the bolt in the tie rod just flops about with no stability.  This would make the car's handling wayward and a correct alignment would be impossible because the tire wouldn't stay in a predictable position.

This might be a problem

One thing you can't see in the picture is the complete lack of resistance offered by the nut protruding from part, it just flopped about with little resistance.  When in the car, this fault would result in wobbly handling and vague steering -- although I can't say I noticed much during my pre-purchase test drive; however, the issues were readily noted on the way home.

Six vs Twelve points: Less is more?

OK, I shouldn't have been using the 12 point socket, because these generally result in more frequent stripping of the fastener, as what happened in this case.  I've found that it's easier to strip a fastener with a 12 point socket, but finding a good reason as to why that's so is easier said than done -- it's almost a vi versus emacs level "debate".  Common sense says the 12 point sockets apply force to a smaller area of the bolt, but that's not settled science at this point.

Installing Parts

Since I just moved the locking bolt back a little (less than 1/8 turn), I used that as a guide for the new part, as not to mis-align the vehicle too much.  Given the state of the alignment, I'm going to have this re-done anyway with the new front tires.  Side by side, the parts were the same length, so the position of the bolt would imply the position of the new tie-rod close enough.

I put a little anti-seize on the outer tie rod end so alignment would be easier, the tension from the locking bolt will keep this part from moving. The ends then need to be filled with some grease and I have a "small" grease gun that attaches to the grease fittings to do the job.  I put about 5 or 6 pumps of grease, this resulted in the excess grease leaking out, so I knew the fitting was filled.  This is where I encountered my first non-metric bolt, the grease fitting needed a 5/16th socket to wind into place.

Done, note the grease dripping from the 

Used a breaker bar to tighten the bolt, tire back on and all done!   The spec calls for 85 ft/lbs of torque on this part, I think I'm close enough if not over.  This was a quick job, no more than 30 minutes a side, even with the problems removing passenger's side part, taking my time to make sure I did it correctly and taking some pictures.

Parts Comparison

I've included a picture of the three tie rod ends in this job, the closest being the tie rod I removed from the passenger's side with the torn boot, the farthest being the newly purchased replacement part and middle being what looks like the original.  I think with some grease, the original part would still be serviceable.  A little measuring revealed the dimensions of the OEM part were about the same as the replacements, with one key difference: the diameter of the end where the ball join sits is about 2mm bigger on the original part.  The failed replacement also didn't have a grease fitting, so one assumes it was (or maybe wasn't) lubed at the factory and the absence of a grease fitting and no hole for the fitting were "design for cost" feature deletions. 

I'm not of the quality of the part I purchased, but I would be very surprised if it outlasted the vehicle. Maybe I'll be surprised.

Alignment

As can be seen by the tire wear, an alignment is necessary as well as two front tires.  For this, I'll visit my local tire shop. A quick survey of local-area shop shows the alignment will cost about $75 and I'm trying to economize on the tires as well.