was told my outer tierods needed replacing , should i replace inner as well? idler arm ?

 

If you consider wheel alignment cost, you may not want to replace one at a time. You may want to replace other parts that may not last a while. Final decision is up to you. Are you doing it or paying someone?

Personally, I would check other pivot joints while disconnected from the knuckle and guestimate remaining life. I wouldn't automatically replace all of tie rod ends, pitman arm, and idler arm at the same time.

 

And this is exactly what we checked when I knew I had to change tie-rods a few months ago - check everything.

In the end I thought it totally silly to believe that on my 140k mile truck that I could just get by with inner tie-rod ends. A buddy who is an OK mechanic checked while i moved a wheel back and forth, and he said to replace just the inner tie-rods and maybe the Idler arm.

I ended up replacing all four tie-rods and the idler arm - the pitman steering arm seemed OK.

Glad I did it, too.

Watch the videos online, get or rent the right forks (prob need two sizes, though I'm not sure which so I had four forks to play with), and do it yourself, then drive right to an alignment place. Like, that day, that hour - or you're gonna need new tires.

Anyway, make sure you pre-measure the old tie-rods, each side - center to center, to get the new ones in the ballpark to be able to drive it to the shop. You'll see that on videos, too.

My truck steers like a brand new truck now. I mean, i still need to re-do some shocks and get new bushings for the sway bar, so it doesn't handle like I had it doing 40k miles ago, but it steers like a new truck.

Edit: I did it myself, so while I initially had two MOOG tie-rods to put on it, when I decided to do the whole thing I went with two pep-boys tie-rods for the outers just to get it done - for safety and peace of mind - to get it done for not much more money. If I have to change those two earlier, then fine, but for the limited funds I did have it still seemed better to know my alignment might last 30k more miles than chancing the alignment costs on already old tie-rods.