Followup on Alignment and snapping noise when turning

Well, I took my car to the stealer to see if they could get it aligned. The guy drove it and said that it was my bearing plates and mounts. He said the car had what they call steering memory. The bearing plates were binding and would not let the wheel return to neutral, also said this is what was making the popping noise when I turned. Stealer said it would cost $440 parts and labor to put in new plates and align it, I said do it. They started this project at 8:00 am and got it done at 2:00 pm (6 hours) during this time I saw the alignment tech take the car out at least 6 different times. This was a sign to me that they were having some problems. Anyway, I got the car back and was all excited, paid for it, and left to go to sears and see if I could get some of my $1250 back from them. As I was driving down the road I noticed that the car finally drove straight, very nice feature on a car like this. The problem started when I turned into sears and I heard the popping up front, same as before. I was very unhappy. I went back to the stealer and told them that the car was still making the popping sound; the guy looked at me for 20 seconds with his mouth open in disbelief. He went and got the guy who put the bearings in and told him. We then went for a ride and he really did not have any idea what it could be but said they can put on what is called chassis ears. I guess this is were they put all kinds of little doodads on the chassis and hook it up to a head set and drive around and listen, it is supposed to amplify the sound and they can pinpoint it then. Sounds good to me, they will be doing this on Tuesday. I forgot to mention that the car has since started to pull to the right again as it did before, very interesting. Anywho, this is my question to you guys, what should I be paying for. What they thought was the problem turned out not to be, all it did was lighten my pockets by $440. I told them that I could not be spending another $450 on this problem and he made it sound like they are going to do the chassis ears thing for no cost, but what about the cost to fix what they find with the ears? Should the first $440 be applied to that or what. I have had the struts off and so has sears,they and myself thought the bearing plates were fine. The car is a 95. Thanks for reading and any suggestions you may have.

Dave Allen

The bearing plates are usually replaced as a new unit, not just the bearings themselves. Did they give you your old ones back when you picked it up? Because it sounds like he spent 6 hours tweaking your steering geometry to just get it to go straight.

No I didn't get the old ones back and ya, it sounds like that is what he did. He put in the whole bearing plate, they wanted to put in mounts also until I told them I just bought 2 from them and they are in there. do you have any suggestions?

They need to honor your money already spent because they didn't fix the problem that you brought it in for. As for Sears, that may require small claims court if you can't resolve it with the store. Bearings can seem to rotate freely in a race, until they are put under spring pressure. If they are not in a fair amount of grease upon inspection, replace them. It's not worth the aggravation.

Chassis ears are small microphones that can be clamped in areas where you think the noise is coming from. Were the upper spring seats ever replaced ? This started after Sears worked on it? I wonder if they correctley aligned the upper spring seat with the bearing cap. They might try to ding you for parts but I wouldn't pay any labor.

This whole thing sounds like it is going to be a nightmare. I can live with the snapping noise but the alignment needs to be fixed. I am afraid that it is gong to be the steering gear or somet5hing like that.
I go to the olds dealer here in Madison Wi. It is a nice place; they sell caddys and the hummer so it is high end cliental. They give you an adviser who talks with you and finds out what your problems are and then relays it to the mechanic who fixes it. When the adviser came and told me that the bearing plates were the cause for both the alignment and snapping I said fix it. When I came back and told him the snapping was still there he got the mechanic and told him. The mechanic and I then took it for a ride and he told me he did not know anything about the snapping noise, just the alignment. This tells me the adviser never told him about the snapping noise and just took it on himself to assume the bearing plates would fix the snapping. In previous visits to this dealer I have gone on a Sunday when none of the mechanics are there but the service advisers have been and I have taken them for a ride to here the noise. I did this twice and each time they said it could be a sub frame bushing or some kind of mount that is worn, like the steering rack mount or tranny mount. To me this makes perfect since, I have described the situation to them. When you are approaching a turn at slow speeds and brake while going halfway through the turn you are loading all the kinetic energy of the car to the front left corner and something is giving or shifting in its mount and when you apply power this moves the previous front loading to the back, and things that moved will move back causing the snap. If I accelerate fast out of the apex you get one big snap, if I accelerate slow you get a series of little snaps. When I say accelerate hard I do not mean floor it, I do not drive this thing like a race car, I have a hyabusa for that, I drive the car very conserved. I think the steering rack is loose or the mount is worn. There are times when I take a corner and this does no happen, it only happens when I continue to brake when I turn the wheel. This shifting would explain the lack of consistent alignment. I it does not return to the place where the alignment was set the geometry is going to be different all the time, this is probably why it took the tech 4 hours and 6 runs to get it aligned. Correct me if I am wrong but when you put a car on the alignment rack and align it to specs it should be good to go, if it is not then there is something else wrong. Correct? Maybe they can put it on there twice but not a whole bunch of times. I think this will make for a good defense in the fact that they should have realized something else was wrong.

Was this ever resolved ? If so what was it? It sounds like the same thing I have.

Marc

I have the same problem. if anyone finds a definete solution, post a thread.

A liberal dose of WD-40 around the top of the struts solved the problem for me. It's been years since I've heard the popping... seriously!