What Are Tie Rod Ends? - GSP Latin America

In order to give your vehicle a smooth, responsive ride, your suspension components must work in unison and be working properly. Any suspension component that has gone bad or been damaged can throw off your entire suspension system. One of the most commonly worn suspension components that get neglected is tie rod ends. Today, we are going to look at what tie rod ends are and how you can tell if yours have gone bad.

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What Are Tie Rod Ends?

Tie rods are a part of your steering system that connects the spindle to the power steering rack. Most vehicles are going to have an inner and outer tie rod that work in conjunction with each other to steer your vehicle by pushing the wheel in the correct direction. The inner tie rod is going to be connected from the power steering rack to the outer tie rod via a threaded end on the inner tie rod. The outer tie rod threads onto the inner tie rod and include a ball joint that inserts into your spindle. The outer tie rod ball joint is usually the problem when these go bad.

What Are The Symptoms Of A Bad Tie Rod End?

Believe it or not, a lot of vehicles on the road today have bad tie rod ends. Most of the time, a bad tie rod end will not render your vehicle useless, unless a ball joint gives out. However, you will notice a few symptoms when your tie rod goes bad or becomes damaged. Look out for these 5 symptoms of a bad tie rod:

• Your Steering Wheel Has A Different Feel To It

• The Front End Is Not Properly Aligned

• Your Tires Are Wearing Excessively or Unevenly

• Squealing Or Clunking Sounds When Turning

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• Your Car Has Lost The Ability To Steer

How Much Does It Cost To Replace A Tie Rod End?

Replacing a tie rod may seem like a simple job as the part is relatively small, but there is a little more to it on many cars. Having the right tools to remove a ball joint and realign the car will be needed to complete the tie rod replacement. Not taking an alignment into account, an average tie rod replacement will cost you about $149-$210, depending on what type of tie rods you choose and where you take it to have the work done.

High-Quality Tie Rod Ends From GSP Latin America

If you are needing to replace the tie rod ends on your vehicle, look no further than GSP Latin America to provide you with the highest-quality tie rod ends on the market.

Precision - Manufactured in world-leading CNC machines to ensure processing accuracy and stability.

Quality Control - All GSP’s suspension components undergo an extensive quality control process

Optimization - Each tie rod end features an OE design improvement for better product performance and easier installation.

Haha. You can tell I’ve got OCD. Getting a lot of enjoyment putting the rig to use. Just want to do my due diligence maintenance-wise.

You can check for excessive play with the suspension unloaded to initially check for excessive, movement/wear. When you get a worn one, You will know it. I am guessing you have checked the "Tube" already before posting on here. Not an item that typically fails within the first few years.

Ok, I get it. Change them with every car wash etc. If you’ve kept things stock and/or are strictly pavement this isn’t a thing. You’re good for life, likely. However, with additional stress on steering components and bearings from bigger wheels and offsets as well as hard use on trails wheel bearings and steering components do wear faster and become a maintenance issue.

Just to put it into perspective, I have a with 186k miles. Couple months ago I took it to a shop to have the front end checked out before going on a weekend off-road trip. The tech took me in the bay and showed me how all the tie rods, lower ball joints, upper ball joints were tight. I bought it with 79k, and as far as I know they're all the originals.

Wheel bearings, CV, axles, and drive shaft u-joints are original as well.

Yep. Checked the Tube and am aware of the 3 & 12 and 12 & 6 unloaded checks you can do with wheels up. Did them recently when I rotated tires. Thing is, the play you might feel at the wheel can be subjective. Buddy of mine was like hey I feel a little play and I’m like nope don’t feel a thing. That said I’d like to know if there were clear indicators or warnings in handling before things give out as losing a tie rod accompanies loss of steering. Pretty catastrophic stuff.

Good to hear. I’m still new to this 4Runner platform and getting a feel for how stout components really are. Hopefully when my is a decade in from use with many trips under the belt I’ll have a better gauge of how things wear.

To add to this, I've driven about 1.5 million miles on Toyotas, both new and used, maybe 12 vehicles in all since . I have yet to experience a failure of tie rods, CV joints, or wheel bearings on any of them.

Let me actually be helpful, although Dillusion and catbrown had me laughing.

I may be the only dude here who’s documented 5th gen factory tie rod failure.
It was due first to a lot of aftermarket mods and extra stress - compounded with off-road shop alignments and my personal lack of knowledge of tie rod design/maintenance. Second, the jam nuts weren’t torqued right and slowly were backing off, I didn’t notice, I even have photo evidence of both sides jam nuts progressively loosening right under my nose. I blame 4R. com for no one catching it in my posts of my suspension
Over time the threads stripped out on both inner and outer the rods. Passenger side worse than driver, both had seriously play until one day during just the right turn at just the right angle the rods separated from each other

*you’ll hear clunking, grinding of the rod play, and there’s road wander

@Scarif_1
Your toyota tie rods are great quality they are good for years and years and years.

Just don’t let my mistake or something like that happen to you.
-watch for any fluid leaking out the inner tie rod bellow
-you or your shop check on the “balljoint tightness”
-watch your jam nuts where the outer rod
twists onto the inner:



^there should be no gap

Those had backed off that much unnoticed?

Damn. So how fast were you going and that must’ve been a moment where life flashed by. I’d put that on the last alignment guy right? Since that’s the toe adjustment you didn’t notice any strange handling leading up to failure?

Damn is right lol

So it was my wife driving, which made things worse cuz she already didn’t like mods. Thank goodness she had just left our house and was travelling somewhat slow over a speed bump while fully locked left.
The truck barely made it back to the house without damaging more parts, it was f*cked. However, I don’t think the separation was possible at a high speed anyways.

Lift and mods done from -, failure March . I blamed my shop, they said I should have periodically checked my tie rods, I said wtf dude. We compromised on free labour for the aftermarket replacement I bought (factory price on inner rods in canada is insane)

Positive castor angle probably contributed to the tie rod threads lasting as long as they did, I also see lots of pitting/corrosion which means once the jam nut(s) backed off there was sufficient thread engagement play to allow moisture to infiltrate, further speeding up the failure....glad the Mrs was okay!



From the day mine was built to almost 18 years later, never taken apart...I think the jam nuts were seized in place! lol

Wow, that's wild. I'm glad no one was hurt and it was a slow speed event. Thanks for posting that, now I know to keep an eye on that. Though. Since my tie rods are original, I'm pretty sure those nuts are seized in place LOL. Once I get them replaced though, I'll keep an eye on the new ones.

I have 230k on mine. Passenger inner tie rod has a little wear. Not wearing tires. Drives itself at 80 mph. I have replacements ready, but I usually don't start replacing parts until 300k. I haven't worn anything out yet. Less is more with a 4runner. The less you touch it and just buy gas, better you will be. You can worry a hole thu the aluminum block faster. There's a reason I change oil 10k, transmission and coolant 60-75k and plugs, brake fluid, steering fluid, transfer case, diffs every 100k. I did install a transmission cooler and power steering cooler and magnetic filter. Already factory oil cooler. I know the less I touch mine, the better I will be. If doesn't cost a fortune to maintain a 4runner that way. You won't get any more miles from new than I will used. It's about doing the right thing only when needed.

noted, sir!

Wow, quote of the year right here!

Wise words. Great advice, especially on vehicles that are otherwise reliable and durable. At some point, overdoing it with maintanance carries more risk of screwing something up, than just doing regular inspections and keeping a normal maintainance schedule. If it aint broke, don’t fix it!

And sometimes, if you’re not sure if something is wrong, it’s better to monitor and wait until you can be sure something is wrong.