2001 Lesabre Vibration at Highway Speeds

[stinyo7]

Hi, for a long time I was feeling a decent amount of vibration at highway speeds when I would turn the wheel slightly to the left. The vibration disappeared if the wheel was straight. In doing research online there was a lot of information that indicated it was a bad lower control arm bushing. So, I bought two control arms online. When I took the driver's side wheel off to start, I noticed a large amount of grease in the wheel well, obviously from the half shaft. So I put the car back together and bought two CV axles. I did those this weekend, and test drove it last night/this morning to work. The vibration is different (perhaps less severe), but it definitely still exists. Should I go ahead and replace the control arms? Or should I be thinking bearing? Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Spriteman]

The easiest way to check the bearing is with the wheel on the car - jack it up and take the wheel at 12 & 6 and rock it. If you have movement then the bearing is probably bad if no movement then the bearing most likely has some more life to it.

Just wondering - were there not just bushing replacement kits you could have bought instead of the whole control arm? I'm not a big suspension guy so not as knowledgeable in that area.

 

[stinyo7]

Thank you, I will try this. To my knowledge you have to replace the whole arm because the bushings are mechanically pressed into the arm.

 

[Spriteman]

I guess the easiest way to tell about the bushings is to see if they see them separately.

 

[stinyo7]

What do you think about the control arms being the culprit for the vibration in the front end?

 

[cmac84]

Just had the same issue, Tie Rods. Exact same symptoms you're describing.

They were fine a month ago, amazing how my passenger side went to shit in a month (torn boot, seized and dangerous)