Alot of places, if they find a bad part like that, will take you out into the shop while its on the rack and point it out to yu. It's very easy to demonstrate to someone who doesn't know about cars the looseness of a center link.
I would take it to a second mechanic, like superman said.
To bad you don't live near me, I could tell you for sure but Rhode Island is a bit of a long drive to Spokane