Took my 2006 E350 in to have an inspection of breaks & suspension (as we just bought it and it felt like suspension was hard [like not absorbing any jolts or bumps in the road]).

Breaks were fine.

Suspension is shot all the way around (it has 156K miles and has a moderate amount of rust on the undercarriage).

However, he found the inner & outer tie rod ends were bad on both sides.

He let me check it myself. You could literally grab either tie rod and rotate it (rock it) back and forth toward the rear and front of the vehicle. This was easy to do by hand and the play was about 135 degrees of rotation of the tie-rod shaft toward the rear and front of the van.

I googled all over and couldn't find a video of the inner & outer tie rod ends being bad. So none of them showed the entire tie rods shafts rotating back & forth so freely and independently like on my van.

Anybody here ever experienced this?

 

Generally if you want to check the front steering, you jack up the front end, and grab the tire at 3 & 9 o'clock, and push it right and left, any slop in the tie-rod ends will show up, grabbing the wheel at 12 & 6 o'clock and pushing/pulling will show bad wheel bearing, and bad ball joints. Watching the front suspension and having someone turn the steering wheel right/left will show any slop in the drag link, and or steering gear.

Rotating the linkage front to rear as you were shown is normal. It's the side to side play that you'll have a problem with, or up and down movement.

Here's a check on the ground, parked.

 

You mention a moderate amount of rust. I did some work up in Minnesota a few weeks ago and we drove a couple trucks, F250 and E350, up there. Both my boss an I couldn't believe how bad the roads were through Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. I made the comment that we would be putting new front ends on our trucks every year if we had to drive these roads everyday. So if the roads are rough in your area, I would assume 11 years of those roads would do a number to your front end parts.

 

Crap. You've got to be kidding me. His parts & labor are ~$500 to replace all of this. I left his shop around 3:30pm this afternoon. Maybe he hasn't started replacing the parts yet. I'll call him first thing in the morning to discuss and make sure he didn't misdiagnose it.

I cant believe this is normal. He didn't seem overtly confident, but exuded enough confidence for me to believe him. He has a *lot* of really great google reviews and almost no bad ones. This is the first time we've gone to this shop. And apparently it may be the last.

Of course the easy proof of misdiagnosis will be if the new linkage rotates back & forth like the original was.

Not it sure what he'll have to say then...

Now I'm second-guessing whether our shocks were actually bad too; although they had plenty of rust and I think they were bad based on the feel of the ride.

I also pointed out to him that the front sway/stabilizer bar bushings had come out on both sides, so the sway bar is extremely ineffective. I noticed this as he let me in his shop to show me the linkage problems. He didn't notice the bushings until I pointed them out. I'm pretty sure he's going to replace them.

/worried

Thanks for your help!

 

We've only owned the van for 3 weeks. I really don't know where all it's been... But we ran a Carfax and I believe there were no signs of it living in the South or coastal states. After we get through the steering & suspension situation, I'll be focusing on the rust for one of my next projects.

 

Don't get over worried about this.......

You said that you had it checked at a shop, that's better than what we can tell you on this forum, as none of us see it, or checked it. I just posted how you can check it yourself, as a "back-up".

With the amount of mileage on the van, it could be time for front steering/suspension work???
I had to replace a steering gear on a '05 E350 with 172K because the pitman arm seal was leaking.
And did the Stabilizer Bar Bushing while I was under there, that were shot.

If this mechanic is replacing the inner/outer tie rods, and the drag link, and then replacing the stabilizer bar bushings, the price for T&M is about right.

Is he including the front end alignment after the work?? This needs to be done after the tie rods are replaced. That another $80 -$150 job.

You also mentioned that....."and it felt like suspension was hard"

This is a E350, it's not a Honda Civic, yea the suspension is going to be a lot stiffer that even a F150. It's build tough
I gave a friend a ride once, and he kept complaining about feeling every bump, I have to remind him that this is a truck, not a car. That's what we have, that's what we need, and we deal with it.