Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Front End Falling apart!!!

About a year ago I had my car serviced at Aamco and when I got my car back I had noticed that my steering wheel was sideways yet my wheels were straight. I took the car back but they said it had nothing to do with them. I took it to another shop and they had said that my front end was taken apart and never put back together correctly. I also had a friend look at it and he said that it might be the rack and pinion. Here is what is happening. Over time its getting worse and worse. When I put my car into a turn it makes a clicking sound and when I go over a bump my front end jingles as if it is going to fall apart. Originally when this happend my cruise control did not work either because of Aamco. They said they forgot to put a piece in so I took it back and they fixed my cruise control. They swear they did not touch my rack and pinion, telling me that there would be no need for it because all they were doing was replacing my clutch. Does this problem sound familiar to anyone. I am afraid that this is going to set me back a pretty penny... Thanks.

so the steering wheel wasn't sideways till they changed the clutch?

i'm not too sure about this, but i'm assuming they changed the clutch by either pulling the engine out the top, which when they reinstalled it, could have bumped the rack causing problems

or if they did it from below, they might have to remove the rack (not sure about that one, my old grand prix had the rack attached to the front subframe) to remove the subframe, which then they didn't install it right. maybe when they did put the subframe back in, they put it in wrong, and it's been shifting causing stuff to bind, and making your steering wheel off to one side

the clicking might be a cv joint (driveshaft) which is needing replaced

i have a ching ching (bling-bling??? nah) sound when i hit bumps due to my driver side sway bar link being broken.

i don't know much about contour subframes, so i dunno if that helps ya any....

Where did you have the work done at? If the shop doesn't follow specific subframe alignment procedures, it will cause bad alignment. Also, if they had to disconnect the steering shaft under the dash, they might have just thrown it back together crooked, and tightened down the bolts. I had a dealer do this to me on a SHO that needed a new heater core, they unbolted the steering shaft under the dash, then when they put it back together they didn't bother to line up the little notch for it, so they just torqued down the bolts with the wheel crooked. limey bastards.

The car was serviced at Aamco. I was also thinking CV joints. I feel as though I am out of luck because I was told that this will cost quite a bit of money. Its a clunking sound like you described. It was never like this before I had it serviced at Aamco. What if they did as you all say and put it together wrong, will it have destroyed anything like the rack and the cv joints? Does this sound expensive to you? This Contour SVT is costing me more money to repair it over time then it was to buy the car.

A possible (likely) scenario is that they dropped the subframe to do the clutch repair, and when they replaced the subframe, they did not get it properly aligned. This caused the wheel alignment problem you were talking about. If the subframe is out of alignment, it can put strain on all the wheel/axle/cv/etc components, which can make the cv's wear quickly.

Wow, strain on my cv's and rack? Never thought about that but sounds like that would be the case. Overtime it is getting worse and worse so that would explain the strain on those parts. Will this be an expensive fix? I wish I knew this so I could have taken care of it earlier. I am so disapointed in Aamco. Thanks for all of yer help guys. This really clears things up for me. Would anyone know an estimate on the cost?