I put new S rated Cooper Tires on our Maxima back in the Spring. I took it in last week for rotating and balancing. After inspecting the car, the tire store rep said that the front struts were weak and that the driver's side front axle was bad. I told him to go ahead and do the balancing and rotation and I'd take it to our regular brake and shocks guy to check into axle.

They completed the balancing/rotation and I drove about 3 or 4 miles to the brake shop and the car seemed to handle fine on this trip. They confirmed that the axle needed replacing and did the work. When I left the shop the car was handling really odd-- sort of "wallowy" (for lack of better term) and small dips or pavement seams just seemed to sort of take the steering wheel out of my hand. I turned around, went back to the brake shop and when I got out I noticed that the rear passenger tire was almost flat.

I told the brake guy about the odd handling and said that I assumed it related to the tire (since I hadn't notice a problem on the way from the tire store to the brake shop). He offered to put it up on the lift anyway just to verify that the axle and other components were o.k. He did so and also said that the way they installed the axle would not have impacted the alignment.

They pumped up the tire and I headed back to the tire store. The handling wasn't as bad, but it was still sort of hard to keep straight and it just felt like you just weren't in good control. They fixed the flat. I mentioned the odd handling and asked them to check the brake shop's work just to make sure. They did so and said that the work was done properly and confirmed that they didn't notice any alignment problems or anything that the brake shop did wrong or messed up installing the axle.

However, the car still handles oddly as I described above so my question is, would weak front struts contribute to the symptoms I described and therefore be the culprit? It seems odd that I wouldn't notice it until after the axle was installed. It is kind of hard to figure out the cause and effect here since so many things were going on at once (rotation and balancing, axle repair, flat tire repair etc.) Would these things just make the strut problem more pronounced, maybe?

Any help or insight would be appreciated.

Ken

 

Wallowing handling is a fure sign of worn strut..car kinda bouonds up and down fo r a while on highway bumps right? I don't know about keeping it from going straight though. That sounds odd. Check tie rod ends, power steering fluid level etc. Generally, a good shop will wait for you to replace all the parts THEN do an alignment. Once you disassemble stuff to replace, for example, the struts, you really should realign. Saves you from paying twice.