How to tell if a front end shake is tie rods or wheel bearings
Front-end shaking can be caused by worn components like ripped tie rod boots or a failing wheel bearing, which is often diagnosed by checking for play in the tire. When these parts wear out, it creates persistent vehicle vibration and confusing noises that make it difficult to pinpoint the exact failing part.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1filling ripped boots with grease temporarily to quiet the shake
- 2Checking if lug nuts are bottoming out or using new lug nuts without caps
- 3Replacing the wheel hub or tie rod end
- 4swapping tires and wheels
- 5consulting professional mechanics
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Has this shudder when driving at about 80. It lessens when turning left, gets worse when turning right. Mechanics are stumped can anyone help.”source ↗
“I have a video with the tire on and it does the same thing”source ↗
“I was thinking maybe my wheel bearing is bad, I just changed the tie rod so ik iys not dat”source ↗
“Thank you, but I have a video with the wheel on amd its doing the same thing, idek so I can here for some help🙏”source ↗
“My sister has a 2013 Chrysler 300 the front end has shake both outer tie rod boots are ripped I filled them with grease and 1 lower control arm has a grease nipple so I filled it, shake has went away I would assume that means outer tie rods need replaced.”source ↗
“They thought so too, I swapped tires and wheels and the issue is still there”source ↗
“The noise is the rotor bouncing against the brake pads and I don't know if its my wheel bearing or something with my rotor or something else”source ↗
Where this came up
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