4 years ago I bought a previously wrecked car from a guy who buys, fixes and resells them. Been a great car except… we have had to replace tie rods going on the 6th time. Sometimes it’s only a few weeks between replacements. No one seems to know why. Had new tires, alignments, balance done. Lot of vibration. Especially at 60-70mph. Any ideas?
Yes, 6 times for the same parts and you still have the vehicle . I would say there is unibody damage that was not repaired . If it was mine I would drive it slowly to the salvage yard . I strongly suspect that this thing will have a catastrophic failure at the worst possible time.
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Failing how?
I’d guess the steering knuckles have been bent and are wrecking the tie rods or the steering rack mountings were damaged in the accident and not repaired properly or at all.
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There’s some other issue going on, replacing the tie rods is masking it.
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I recall a Nissan many years ago that had repeated outer tie rod failures. The car was in a fleet and I made it a point to pay attention to the car whenever I was at the business that owned the car and one day I saw the car enter the rear parking lot quite fast and turn into a downward sloping parking position and stop when it struck a high curb at 45* angle with the wheel turned to take the strike at the inside. I stopped and questioned the young lady driving the car and she was too rushed to talk to me. I spoke to the fleet manager and he found that the regular driver was doing an excellent job rushing somewhat critical samples and results to and from a lab. When I mentioned that the tie rod could fail totally and result in the car going out of control it was decided that a more convenient place to park was needed and with the car being parked parallel to the curb there were no more tie rod failures.
I wonder if a similar situation commonly occurs with the OP?
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I have a 1999 Corolla and never had to replace the tie rods on it.There is something wrong with your car if you keep replacing them.
I replaced the front stabilizer end links a few times and I am still driving on the stock suspension.
There’s no way tie rods should need to be replaced 6 times and especially after only a few weeks.
A vibration could be caused by things other than tie rods. Brakes, ball joints, control arm bushings, etc.
I suspect that someone is doing some misdiagnosing.
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The car’s service manual will likely have the dimensional specs for how the car’s steering and suspension system was put together when it was manufactured at the Toyota plant. This is the kind of info body shops use when they repair a wrecked vehicle. They’ll measure between two known reference points, and compare that to the spec. If it is incorrect they’ll take corrective action (usually involves bending something) to get it back to the correct distance. I expect that is the process your car needs. Assuming of course your shop is using the correct replacement parts. It’s pretty common here for posters to say they got the wrong dimension drive-shafts. Drive shaft length varies depending upon which transmission and engine is installed. But not so much for tie rods.
Maybe there’s a bent hub flange . This would make the tire wobble side to side and over time could damage the tie rod connections. Ask a shop to measure the lateral (side to side) run-out of both front hubs. Good idea to check the vertical run out too.