The last few weeks I've been filling in as a mechanic at a friend's shop as his best mechanic has been in the hospital (he's doing better though, I spoke to him yesterday and he sounded well. Hopefully he'll be back soon, as this is not something that I particularly enjoy doing.) A couple times I have seen aftermarket tie rod ends come in that are simply made wrong; the original parts use Nylocks for the nut on the stud but the new ones use a castellated nut and a cotter pin in the traditional manner. Well, that's OK, right, and probably easier to service down the road? Not so much... the hole for the cotter pin is drilled in the wrong place! To get the cotter pin to actually lock between some castellations you have to stack up a couple washers under the nut. I'm not real comfortable with that, but that's what you have to do to make these parts work.
Sure enough, yesterday a customer came in for an oil change and I shook one of the wheels and found some play... looked under the car and there was one of those damn tie rod ends; the nut had backed off until the face of the nut finally hit the cotter pin and the stud was loose in the steering knuckle, causing the play I felt. Worse news, her LF tire was beyond corded on the inside. Apparently a family member meaning to be helpful had purchased this tie rod end at AutoZone and installed it for her; she was planning on getting an alignment next week. Well, now she needs at a minimum some washers, a cotter pin, and a new tire in addition to the alignment... assuming that the tapered hole in the knuckle isn't wallowed out from driving it like that. I really don't enjoy giving people bad news like that, and I feel that I'm throwing a well meaning person under the bus when in reality his only mistakes were trusting that the aftermarket parts were made correctly and not looking closely at the installed part with a flashlight after the job was done.
Just a heads up, be careful and watch what you're doing when installing new aftermarket suspension components... I'd like to say "stick with good brands like Moog and TRW and you'll be OK" but I can't say that they're not the same Chinese crap in different boxes.
The frustrating thing is that the auto parts stores in the area of my friend's shop (yes, even NAPA and CarQuest) have all discontinued their Pik-A-Nut selection, so if you need a piece of hardware to finish a job (e.g. some hardened 12mm or 1/2" washers) you're well and truly screwed unless Fastenal is open and you have time to drive there...
nate