Suspension/Steering probs w/ '87 300TD Turbo Wagon

Greetings. I'm hoping that someone can help point me in the right direction.

My girlfriend has an 87 300TD Turbo Wagon (the 6 cyl) with close to

200k miles. She regularly drives on both highway and city conditions. The last time she drove it, it began shuddering dramatically when driven at high speeds (around 65 mph). The shudder goes away when it is driven at non-highway speeds. She has since stopped driving it and fears that she'll have to drop a bunch of money at the mechanic's shop.

She purchased it in February and had a 50pt inspection done on March

7, 2007. The mechanic's comments potentially relevant in this case were these:

-One rear suspension accumulator is bad, ride is too rough. Both accumulators should be replaced ($450)

-Both front struts are weak, need replacement ($600)

-Front lower control arm bushings are broken. This is most likely cause of "thumping" noise when hitting bumps ($500)

In addition, I have noticed an unusual strip of wear on the front passenger tire. On the outside sidewall, approx 2-3 inches from the tread, is a fairly deep, 1-inch strip of wear. The other tires appear normal.

Please let me know if you have an idea of what may be causing the shuddering and where a good place for me to start would be. I appreciate any thoughts on the matter.

Thanks, erik

Reply to
fishlegs
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I'm no expert, but it sounds to me like the front end is out of line. The "strip of wear" on the sidewall of the tire sounds to me like your girlfriend probably ran into something (a curb perhaps) pretty hard and knocked the front end out of line. She probably didn't tell you because, since there was no body damage, she didn't think it hurt anything. I'm only saying this because I was once a girlfriend myself and did pretty much the same thing with my cadillac srx. And I didn't tell my boyfriend when I hit that curb... but I did let him know when the front end started shuddering at higher speeds.

Reply to
ninanner

-Front lower control arm bushings are broken. This is most likely cause of "thumping" noise when hitting bumps ($500)

In addition, I have noticed an unusual strip of wear on the front passenger tire. On the outside sidewall, approx 2-3 inches from the tread, is a fairly deep, 1-inch strip of wear. The other tires appear normal.

The two copied items plus an out of balance tire (because its now so worn) are the cause of "the problem".

There's not much point in aligning anything that's worn out because the adjustment gets lost in the wear's slop - so why bother?

The lower control arm bushings need to be replaced, then the front end needs to be aligned and the tire replaced or mounted as the spare if its still service quality. Both front tires ought to be balanced to eliminate possibility that the left is contributing to the shaking.

Reply to
-->> T.G. Lambach

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