after I put on new outer tie rod ends and ball joints (the old ones were completely shot) the car is alot better. now after a heavy icing in the area (lots of pot holes and ice bumps) now the car pulls to the left and to drive strait I have to **** the steering wheel to the right. After about a week of that all of the sudden it is ok again. what gives? now the car goes strait down the road and the wheel is stait.

rack bushings? where are they? how much do they cost? how easy of a job?

I'm kind of a duffus when it comes to suppension, but tell me how and I can usually do it no problem. ball joints and tie rod ends were time comsuming (damn cotter pins) but easy.

 

did you have the car aligned after you replaced everything?

 

control arm bushings are my bet.

the rack moving wouldn't cause the car to pull. it would cause the wheel to be off center after turning one direction, then re-center after going the other way... but the car would still drive in a straight line when you let go of the wheel.

 

Perhaps you had a frozen caliper. Maybe a frozen cable on the parking brake?

 

I was thinking the same thing like frozen caliper. I recently had a similar problem with my car. I let it sit for a few weeks in the really cold, snowy weather. When I started driving the car again, one of the brakes calipers started sticking a little bit. It felt like an alignment problem, but it went away after a couple days of driving.

 

I would replace the control arms,my car had the same issue a few months ago,replaced passenger side control arm,no more pulling...

 

Also check and make sure the power steering high pressure hose isn't leaking and causing the control arm bushing to go bad.

~Alex

 

I have already had both control arms replaced. it did the same thing after I had them replaced. that was about a year and a half ago. frozen caliper, I dont think so. it would go bad then go good then go bad again. no I didnt have the car realighned after I replaced the tie rod ends. I kept the nut behind the tie rod end in the same place after I took the old ones off sos not to mess up my alignment.

but you guys are saying not rack bushings. by the way its been driving strait for the past 4 days or so. I do at least two hours of highway driving every weekday so its easily noticeable

 

I would've guessed something froze up as well but if it goes back and forth constantly that doesn't really make sense. Is it still really cold where you are? I just got an allignment the other day and I love it. I've been replacing all kinds of stuff up front in the power train and I guess it just got out whack over time. Try getting it alligned and see what it does.