Steers like Crap
ball joint was bad and binding for some reason.. sent it in for an alignment and man the thing steers liek it should
When I was an alignment tech, I found certain brands of balljoints to be too tight when brand new, just like you say. And sometimes/often, they stayed too tight.. The following story is on a car with pre rack-and-pinion steering;
When a particular car came back for the third time,with an unhappy customer, I knew something was up. I put the sensors up, again, and saw that the caster/camber/thrust angle, etc; were all good, and same as I had last set them.
So I put some tools together and headed out on the road. It didn't matter where I set the tire pressures, nor where I put the toe, nor how tight or loose the sector was adjusted, nor if I flipped the PS belt off; it never got better.
What I figured was happening was that there must be a tight component in there, probably a BJ, and that the extra turning-resistance was causing the steering to stay in whatever direction it was last steered. If that was not straight ahead, then the toe was off, and the car self-steered.
Since no roadway is dead flat, and rare is the day we have calm winds, steering dead ahead almost never happens. With "normal" resistance in the BJs, the tires are constantly being pulled this way and that way, but for the most part it averages out to whatever position the car is being steered in.
Back in the shop, I popped the idler arm off, to be able to isolate the bad side or sides, and immediately found the tight NOT-Moog, recently replaced LBJ. I had put it there.
This was not the first time I had had trouble with that brand.
I got paid by the hour, so I asked my boss how many more times, he wanted to pay me to uninstall brand new junk parts? It was totally a false economy just to save the customer a couple of bucks, and then to get a reputation of this sort of come-backs.
He got the point.
After that I was very particular about the tightness and smoothness of every New part I installed, especially off-brand stuff.
And we lost some business. I was also a government authorized automotive and light-truck safety inspector. And certain small business used car dealers would send their vehicles to us for inspection. And whenever I would condemn these components, they would want the cheapest junk we could find, to be installed.
So I asked my boss, if he wanted to get a reputation of installing cheap junk? I mean when a used car buyer buys a used car, and the parts wear out in 50 miles, what are they gonna do? They go back to the seller and complain. And the seller passes the buck back to the installer. That's us. And that's me. And when that gets around the neighborhood, what's gonna happen boss, to your business, and to my job?
He got the point.
So we lost some business from these petty sellers. But as it got around that we were no longer doing thatchit, other business started coming in. And I sorta became one of the few go-to guys, in our small community, for diagnosing difficult steering problems.
In the end, it had been a good decision. We got a better, more loyal, customer base; and the money kept rolling in.
To be fair to Moog, I never ever had a problem with Moog parts, and they went the distance. I installed Moogs in my Barracuda, in 1999, they now have over 125,000 not easy, miles on them. I got out of that line of work, before Moog and TRW started outsourcing.
Lemmee tell you about the K-car that came in, and I had on the rack about 3 or 4 times; Ok I will.
Finally I wanted to meet the owner. Ok. Here was a monster of a man, 6ft tall and 400 plus pounds, and his wife of maybe 250.
In a K-car.
Boss, I said, what were you thinking?
Those are my parents.
Doh!
Ok get me 4 of the heaviest duty strut springs you can find. You know they won't be stiff enough, but that's the best I can do. On the final alignment, I put all the sandbags we had on the front floors, and pails of lead besides. A week later they were back.
Oh lordy; what now?
They just popped in to say thank you!