Hi, I noticed recently that I get quite a bit of resistance when I turn my steering wheel cold. When warm it feels a little better but still doesn't feel right. When checking my car I see my passenger side tie rod is leaking from the boot.

Is the difficulty in steering directly related to the leaking boot or do I have a more serious problem?

Do I need to replace the entire tie rod or can I get away with just replacing the boot?

Thanks

 

You have to remove it to know for sure. Can you pivot the ball joint easily while it's on the car? Does it feel loose? It could be binding. It's a $25 part. Mark it with whiteout so you can set your alignment afterwards and replace it.

 

Thanks, I didn't realize it was an inexpensive part. I think I'll just replace it for my piece of mind. Now, is it recommended to replace both sides or just the one leaking?

 

Also, is it safe to drive or can I get away with driving as is for a week or 2 until I have a free weekend?

 

Shouldn't be too bad. You will ultimately want to get an alignment as the new ball joints will have a different resting position than loose busted ones. You only need to replace the bad one, but seeing as it's not crazy expensive you might as well do both. If you're swapping them for new ones, just use a pickle fork and bust them out easy as pie. You'll have a harder time removing the cotter pin from the castle nut than actually replacing them.

 

Lol.. meant to say I thought you'd need to replace the entire rod not just the end link. I'm not crazy about getting another alignment though since I just had one last month.

 

You'd be likely fine with a front end toe and go. As that's the only alignment the tie rods affect. It's actually the easiest alignment setting to do because 0 front toe is perfect. In other words, if you pick an arbitrary parallel distance from the wheel with the steering pointing dead ahead, if the front of the wheel and the rear of the wheel are equal distance from your parallel point you have 0 toe.