Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General General grease your outer tie rod ends every 3000 miles???

that's what the man said. i took my car to an independant dealer/mechanic to have him look at the outer tie rod ends which were FUBAR. The same tie rod ends he himself put in just a year and a half ago. He tells me that because I didn't grease them with every oil change, they rusted and he didn't wanna replace for free. :rolleyes: He never told me about having to grease him when he put 'em in. I threw a fit right then and there (there's more to this story but I don't wanna get into it) and got his boss involved until I got the parts free and paid for the labor (45 bucks), which was what he had told me earlier he'd do. This time I made sure he put in MOOG's brand because I did a search and some said they were better or at least warrantied. A tie rod end shouldn't have to be replaced every 30,000 miles. Any thoughts? Does any of this make sense?

Hmmm... another Contour thing? My tie rods (or tie rod ends; I dunno) went bad and I had to replace them 2 months ago to pass safety inspection. I had exactly 33,100 miles.

As far as greasing them, my parents (who picked up the car after the repair) never told me they said this, and it's not mentioned at all in the receipt.

I beleive the stock tie rod ends cannot be greased. I still have my original ones and they are fine. My brothers tempo just had one replaced and those can be greased. I would think they would be fine until the whole chasis is greased every so often....hmmm, something else to look into and do...

If the new tie rod ends came with grease fittings, it sounds like he didn't grease them when he installed them. If they have fittings, they should be greased from time to time, but I would not think that they would need it as often as every 3,000 miles. Usually once a year or 10,000 to 15,000 miles is enough. They do need to be greased when installed though. If they were properly greased when installed, I would expect them to last longer than 30,000 miles. Mine are still the original ones and they are still tight. I have 130,000 miles.

I wonder if the tie rods were the culprit in the 1st place. I brought the car in complaining about a squeek-squeek-squeek I was getting when doing any kind of turns (especially left turns) and it was there whether the brakes were applied or not. Now that I drive w/ the windows down again, I notice the same sound, just not as bad. Is this more likely the wheel bearings. Aren't those supposed to click-click-click when they go bad? Thanks for the info Jim. Another mechanic took a look and said the parts he used the 1st time were crap. I will take the car into a more honest place to make sure the he didn't do a crap job the 2nd time around. How can you double check to see that he put in MOOG ends? And are they really better?

I'd just buy Ford tie-rod ends. It's only $18.50 from when I got mine from Bill Jenkins.

when the wheel bearing went on my father 95 SE it made a growling sound that became more noticiable with increased speed. IIRC the wheel moving while you try to move it front/back, as in grabbing at the top and bottom and pushing/pulling then the bearing is going bad. A left right motion while pushing/pulling left to right is the tie rod end. hope that helps some

thanks for the replies guys. I didn't know they were that cheap from Bill. I could've got them way back when he worked nearby...shucks. This was another job I shoulda attempted myself I guess.