07 chev Cobalt front end issues

My son has purchased this car new 07 Cobalt 2 dr with a 2.2 engine, he has 69k miles on it 90 percent highway miles, back in the fall he was telling me there was a rumble type noise in the front, I took the car for a ride and it seemed to be a out of round tire, they were bad, I had the front end aligned and installed 2 snow used snow tires for the winter, they were balanced, it was a little better, now he notices the passenger front tire is cupping bad on the inside, not sure if alignment or balance relates to this issue, but he wants me to take the car somewhere else for a alignment, he thinks the guy who did the alignment in October did not do a good job, I can't say, he says the car at times wanders around on the highway, what can I look for, I have my own wheel balancer, should I check the balance. I have new tires on the rear, I was thinking of putting them on the front and take it for a spin and see if that helps, any suggestions

thanks Chet

Reply to
Chet
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At 69K he may have some worn out front end parts that are causing problems, especially if the wandering around on the highway is something it didn't do when it was new. I would take it to a good independent shop that specializes in front end work, assuming you can find one.

Reply to
Ashton Crusher

Cupping is usually shock absorbers, no?

Reply to
phaeton

phaeton wrote in news:4a302e56-ff1d-4749-8e30- snipped-for-privacy@22g2000yqr.googlegroups.com:

Can't speak to the OP's Cobalt specifically, but for most cars, cupping is more often the fault of badly-mounted tires. Even with barely functional shocks, properly mounted tires will wear quite normally.

Most "tire" problems are due to inept mounting, but are blamed on shifted belts, out-of-round tires, road-force variance, bad shocks, etc.

VERY few tire shops really know how to mount tires properly.

Reply to
Tegger

I see. My tire-mounting horror story is all about bent wheels at Sam's Club.

Reply to
phaeton

I agree, Ashton. There are more than one causes for cupping tires. I got it once on a van that was aligned and had no worn suspension parts.

I should have had the tires rotated earlier and didnt.

Bad shocks or struts can be the problem... but there are others.

You dont need to fart around with more balancing and alignment. Go to someone who knows wtf is going on, and have him diagnose the problem.

The OP should stop looking for a quick and simple fix and take the car to an expert.. NO, I didnt say dealership.. I said expert.

Reply to
hls

when I had my sons car inspected last September, the guy at the garage showed me oil seepage coming from the top of the shock strut, both sides, I called a chevy service dept and explained the leak, he said this is normal, I told the guy who inspected my son's car and he said he never heard of a strut seeping oil that was normal. called another chevy dealer and made an appointment last September they checked it out an said it is withing spec and no need to replace the struts. so much for the cost of the BS extended warranty

Chet

Reply to
Chet

phaeton wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@m3g2000yqf.googlegroups.com:

Bet they weren't bent at all. "Bent rim" is a favorite blame for tire monkeys who don't know how to true tires properly.

Reply to
Tegger

I have in fact had a bent rim on a 944, and I put up with a nasty vibration at highway speed for several years until I bought some "known good" wheels and tires and started swapping them around myself. I lost track of how many shops sent me down the road and told me that there was nothing wrong with my car. I knew better because the car drove fine with the winter tire/wheel set installed.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

snipped-for-privacy@m3g2000yqf.googlegroups.com:

No they're bent alright. I kept going back to have them rebalanced. Every time they'd say "oh yeah they were way off" and there would be huge freakin' weights on the wheels. After doing this a couple of times I took it to an actual tire shop for balancing. They brought me in and showed me the wheel and tire on the balancer, hopping up and down like a rabbit. He showed me the marks on the inside of the wheel where the tire machine deformed the rim. Then he took the tire off and showed me the wheel by itself, also hopping up and down. He guessed that they didn't bother to see if it was on the machine straight before breaking the bead. There are two of them like that.

I wouldn't have gone to Sam's Club to buy tires, but they were a gift from my gf at the time. I prefer to go to a real tire shop, but was nice of her to buy me a set of tires. I had just over 90K on the factory Firestone Wilderness ATs, and while they still had plenty of tread left were getting dry-rotted.

Oh well, live n learn.

-J

Reply to
phaeton

One of the first things I would look at are the tie rod inner sockets. They do not easily exhibit their wear as they are spring loaded. Any perceptible moovement indicates wear. This would also explain road wander particularly noticeable when throttling up or down or applying the brakes. If this is the case, a complete reman rack and pinion ( commonly called a long rack) will include new tie rod assemblies for much less than separate components. Some long racks a about the same price as a pair of replacement tie rods. You might also note the tie rods will require a special very deep socket to install. They will already be installed on a long rack asembly.

Lugnut

Reply to
lugnut

Nate Nagel wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news7.newsguy.com:

I've had (and been shown) actual bent rims. I know what these look like. I have been shown wheels with center hubs that are eccentric to the rim. I have also been shown wheels with the rim (felloe?) welded slightly out of plane with the center.

No wheel is perfect. And wheels get whacked all the time in service, which makes them even less perfect. Tolerance for this imperfection is built-in to the car. Automakers give runout tolerances for the wheel, both axially and radially. SOME runout (around 1/16" max seems common) is EXPECTED. A clueless or lazy tire man will show the customer the runout and declare that the wheel is "bent" when in fact it is actually within spec.

Any tire man with his brain inflated to the correct spec will be able to tell the difference between a bent wheel and one that's been badly made. He will check this after unmounting the old tire, but BEFORE putting the new one on.

And any tire man with a brain and proper training will be able to get a tire to run true even if the wheel is not perfect, which it often is not. And he does not need a sooper-dooper hi-tech Hunter road-force balancer to do it.

I state again: Many tires are badly mounted. Many tire monkeys are inept and poorly-trained. Most tire "vibrations" and "bent rims" are the fault of poor mounting jobs.

The worst thing of all is the attitude of many garage bosses, who seem to think tire mounting is a bottom-scraper job, one to be given to the dumbest/newest/lowest-paid/worst-trained employee.

Reply to
Tegger

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