hey guys chrisfix here today I'm gonna
show you how you could tell if your tie
rods have gone bad a bad Tyrod can cause
uneven tire wear and if it's really bad
it could even disconnect while you're
driving and that's just a bad situation
besides tire wear bad tie rods can cause
a clunky feeling when you first turn
your steering wheel
they could also squeak when you use the
steering wheel but that could also be a
ball-joint so you have to go check it
out if you have any of these symptoms
just check up the front of the car and
I'll show you how to test it with both
tires off the ground what you're gonna
want to do is put your hands at the 3
and 9 o'clock positions on the wheel
with your hands in those positions move
them back and forth and see if there's
any play in the wheel you'll feel
clicking or a giving movement and that
movement could indicate a bad tire rod
if you think there's some play or you
just want to check further you could
take the tire off and inspect the tie
rod itself so there are two parts to
your tie rods your inner tie rod and
your outer tie rod inspect the inner
tire out visually by looking at the boot
seeing if there's any leaks I don't see
any leaks here the boot is still intact
there are no holes there's no rips or
anything so that visually looks good now
for the outer tie rod you could see here
already there's a nice big gash on my
tie rod boot and this just happens over
time the boot cracks and goes bad and
then inside you could see the grittiness
and that greediness is not good that's
like sand and stuff that gets kicked up
and goes in here so this is shot if you
catch a boot that was just recently torn
sometimes these boots are replaceable
so you could just take the boot off and
put a new one on and then you save
yourself 30 40 50 bucks you don't have
to do anything special you don't have to
get alignment nothing but if the boots
been ripped for a while you see
grittiness in there you see the sand and
the dirt then you're gonna have to
replace the whole tie rod end if your
boot is good then what you should do is
you take the tie rod and you try to
shake it left or right move it in and
out if there's any unwanted play such as
clicking or you can easily move the tie
rod from side to side then it needs to
be replaced now this is a new tie rod
end and this is what it should look like
some tie rod ends have a grease fitting
that's what you want to try to look for
if you need to replace it and if you
have one stuck always grease this every
time you do an oil change it'll force
the old grease out which carries all the
grit and stuff so this will last a lot
longer but upon visual inspection you
can see there are no tears or anything
on the rubber that covers
the inner tie rod end the other thing is
there's no unwanted motion like I was
talking about before obviously this is
brand new so you're not gonna have any
of that but I need to give you something
to contrast a bad tire rod off of so
this is a good tire rod now to test the
tie rod even more you can take it out
and with a visual inspection you can see
this boot is completely ripped and
there's all grit in here it's almost
like sand the other thing is you could
turn this with your hands and you can
feel it's really gritty and it's very
clunky which isn't good you want this to
be smooth so the outer tie rod is bed
now to test the inner tie rod all you do
is you want to move this in and out so
you want to push in pull out and what
you want to do is you want to feel for
any clicking if it clicks then the inner
tie rod is bed clicking indicates that
the ball joint on the inner tie rod is
worn out and it's allowing movement
which isn't good you don't want any
movement in there this one is completely
solid which is good the other thing you
could do is move it around like this
make sure you don't feel any grittiness
no grinding and it's okay if it's a
little bit movable but if it moves like
way too easy and just feels way too
loose then you might want to consider
changing inner tie rod this is
relatively easy to move but still I can
feel some resistance which means it's
still good so the outer tie rod is bad
but the inner tie rod is good but that's
okay because the outer tie rod is an
easy fix and you can replace this in ten
minutes no special tools required that
video will be up on the screen along
with another tie rod video I did where I
change the outer and the inner tie rod
so you can see how to do that which
isn't very difficult you could rent the
tool for free and you could change the
inner tie rod if this video was helpful
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can't click on the videos on the screen
the links to those videos are in the
description below if you check out your
tie rod and you have a question just
leave it in the comments below I'll get
to it and answer it for you and I'll try
to help you out