Questions and Answers

Ford Taurus Takes A Bad Front End Hit Q. Hello there, this is kind of long, but the problem is complicated. First off, about a year ago I hit a curb at about 40 mph about 30° off from head on with the wheels all the way over to the right locks. This is the cause. The back end went over the curb clean and is okay. I replaced the lower control arms, no uppers, on both sides, both front struts, a new rim, and the outer tie rod connector and an alignment.

Now here's the problem. When I get above about 45 mph, the steering wheel starts to shake side to side. First I thought it was the rotors, so I took it in under warranty and they re-machined the front rotors because they were on the verge of going out of spec. That was at the end of January.

Now it's come back even worse and wanders BADLY down the freeway. I took it back to Ford and they re-machined the rotors again, and now it gets better when I step on the brakes, not worse, but it still wanders horribly down the freeway. I also had the tires rotated and balanced two weeks ago and the problem got slightly better. I had to even buy two new front ones because the wandering and vibration burned my tires off.

Another problem is in the mornings when I go over small bumps I get this thumping sound in the front left suspension. This wheel took 90% of the curb hit also and had the bent control arm and destroyed rim. Then as I go over a speed bump I get a *thunk**shhhsss*.

It's like something is loose in there that is small enough that it shakes enough over little bumps, then going over the speed bump it thunks then the strut reacts to the bump. Then after a few minutes, the thunking stops. I'm thinking a cracked bushing or ball joint that once it heats up, fills in the crack and doesn't thunk.

But, I've lifted the front end plenty of times and tried shaking and moving the wheel by hand and looking at the ball joint and it looks fine and the wheel doesn't feel to have any slop in it.

I've been baffled for about six months now, and it's only getting worse. I'm sure the two problems are related, but I have no idea what is causing both. My apologies about being so long winded, but I wanted you to have all the information so you could make the more educated decision about what is wrong.

• 2000 Ford Taurus SE
• 3.0 liter V-6 12 valve Flex Fuel Vehicle
• Fuel injected
• Automatic transmission
• 26,000 miles
• ABS
• Rack/Pinion power steering

Thank you for any insight you can provide.
Elliot

A. When a car has been whacked like this, all the rules and logic goes right out the window.

What I do in a situation like this is to put the car on the lift and whack the bottom of the tire with a BFH. Most of the time this is enough to simulate the conditions the noise manifests itself.

Also, I would not eliminate the possibility of damage to the steering rack, inner tie rod ends and/or the steering rack mount bushings.