Anybody replace tie-rods? My 93 Legacy L is in the the shop for new tires and they report that the left tie-rod is wobbly at the inner joint. They want to charge $140 for the parts, service, and alignment. Any thoughts?

Fairly common fault, not dangerous. I had the same thing happen to my 1990 Legacy, also at a tyre shop. Spoke to my local dealer and he said "Leave it. Not a problem."

 

He was right, I did another 20k miles in the car, sold it to a friend who had it inspected and no-one complained. It's done over 30k miles now and no further deterioration. As long as ATF fluid isn't leaking out, don't worry about it.

It's really easy to do if you were thinking about doing it yourself. Just mark both ends in the the middle so that when you assemble the new ones they are the same length as to avoid the need for an alignment. Be sure to use new pins, boots and clamps.

 

Hope this helps.

Thanks again. You guys have been a great help on several things. I think I'll look in to borrowing a buddies garage for a few hours and get that fixed. Might as well do it now as later when the part only costs $25.00.

I'm glad we could be of assistance. I think tie rods are a reallly easy, important thing you could do to your car. I had a dodge caravan that would shimmy and wonder due to a bad tie rod. It didn't take that long to replace them and I had peace of mind as well.

 

The only hard part was getting the old inner tie rods off. I had to use a 9in adjustable wrench to get them off and they were in an odd place so I could only get 1/4 turn before having to rotate the wrench.

 

Good luck. I have faith in you.

after you do it. It will wear your tires quickly and can be dangerous if left uncorrected. I would replace the tie rod end as soon as I could.