flyAddict

So it's been a while. however i've got a troublesome conundrum.

Everytime i exercise my 4-wheel, i wobble on the road after. pulling sharply left in jerks. at first i thought it was mud throwing off my wheel balance. sprayed it out... it wasn't. so I took it to toyota and got it re-aligned. no notes, no idea how out of alignment it was. seemed better.

Recently i caved to the pressures of exercising the 4-whl again. nothing glorious just a powerline trail run. when i got back on the road same tugging left on my steering wheel. sprayed it out again to no avail. took it to my local tires+ for an alignment. they spent 2 hrs on it. i was kind of annoyed until they motioned me back to explain how my front left side ball joint was shot [ by shaking the tire making the balljoint shift back and forth 1" side to side.

So i took it back to toyota and explained what i saw. they checked it out... nothing while driving. returned my 4runner as fine.

without dwelling i returned to the road thinking it would return w/o provocation. it did after using 4wd. took it back in while still obvious. still they couldn't find anything. at this point the tech rode with me and thought it might be axel binding and then forcing the upper ball joint. i explained that the axel was shot from a previous boot tear and starting to sound that way in 4wd. left it with him.... drove it some. found nothing. it's fine.

driving in to work today it was wobbly around the 45 mph bend, i know if the balljoint goes the wheel is basically flappin'. What can i do?

How much is a front axel replace at the dealer?
how much is a front left (ds) upper ball joint replacemnt?

What can i do since toyota won't even recognize there's a problem!!?
My front axels aren't under warranty now (my bad, search for past if ?), but if toyota replaces them i'm good to go... or will the story alway be that since i'm lifted i'm not covered.... furthermore does anyone ever get front axels repaced under warranty. I can see them always, no matter what, being a wear and tear issue...??

What can i do front here?? it's a bit worrysome to drive into work, but no yota stealer seems to find the problem or acknowledge it. I can't keep wasting days of work to get it "looked" at. are they playing me like a chump or what?

olharleyman

try the balljoint replacement first see if that doe's anything before you go and spend an ass load of money on the axle replacement.

If thats not the problem get an axle from e-bay or a junkyard and do it yourself it's really not that hard it's just time consuming

4Hummer

Upper and lower Ball joints Inner and outer tie rods, and a decent Steering stabilizer Shock, That's what fixed my nasty wobble. (Although all my components were pretty trashed from years of hard core abuse)

You can replace all these for under $200.00 if you do it yourself.

I've seen where a belt has shifted inside the tire causing something like this
Try switching front tires to rear.

flyAddict

Thanks guys! Michael, Toyota did away with steering stabilizers with the 3rd gen, it's now just up to good wheel balance. I'd love to start at the least expensive and work my way up but i'm thinking it's the axel that's forcing the ball joint. Which is going to expensive. i had hoped toyota would cover the upper ball joint under warranty however i think if it's the axel (my bad) that's acting on the ball joint. then there's no way they'll cover it. they seem to site the fact it's lifted as the reason anything happens and why it's not covered under warranty. Which brings me to the conclusion that if i have them replace ball joint and/or axel by the time it's problem again the warranty won't matter b/c i lifted the vehicle and it's out of their manual and obviously my fault. Anyone?

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by wobble i mean a harmonic that's reached at higher speeds. basically if the upper ball joint shifts, as i saw from the dude at tires+, it throws off the driver's side front wheel's cam off, when the tire grabs it pulls the steering wheel left then relaxes. if the image that action replicated on and off at a higher speed it feel like the whole front end it shaking from left to right in wider motions. I can hear the axel from time to time now even when not under load (2wheel drive) poping, not repeatedly but one big one every once and a while always while starting forward/rev movement, after which the ball joint starts acting up. sometimes subtly. The only thing i know that really makes is obvious is taking some spins in the mud. then it can't be ignored.