Thanks,
I did some research and those ball joint sounds expensive to replace..
I hear between 500-1000,
(tie rod ends 250, lower control arm bushing 450, and 4struts 375 (struts price without part) those sound roughly correct?
I was also priced 100$ to replace one of the lug nut stud, that seem a lot for what it is.. I saw some youtube video and the guy did it in 10 minutes..

I'm looking on youtube to see if I find somebody have the same noise..

 

I would check Sway bar bushings as well. They seem to go out pretty quick on these cars.

You can test those by having someone push ride behind the drivers side door at the top of the car to create a swaying motion and have someone hold the sway bar and see if they can hear it "popping"

 

Yeah, those too...

 

Well, I brought it to sears auto.. for free inspection, I never thought I would go there, but I needed to go on saturday, can't keep being late
to work because of the car...

They test-drove the car, and lifted it and the tech showed me the problem, it was the bushing on the control arms, right and left, they
were really messed up..
(the back bushing on both front wheel, the ones you can replace, apparently the other bushing are in the arm itself, but those ones were fine)

I should get it back tomorrow, they are charging me $43 for parts, and $300 for labor.. (then $46 to replace the stud/nut that was frozen.)
A lot of money but I was expecting worse.. I just hope they do a good job...
And I really hope that will fix it.

What do you think of sears auto ?

Thanks a lot for the help

 

You'll be fine

 

I think I'd have bought poly bushings instead, but other than that. Those are the lower control arm bushings, BTW. Those are usually the first things to go suspension wise, especially when you take them off-road (that's how mine became bad too).

 

Sounds right to me thats what happened to my sxt last yr and had a local tire shop by me do it for 200bucks . Sears auto is pretty decent at least for tires. never had them work on anything on my neon before but husband truck yes. They are a little high in price but not as high as the dealer would cost.

 

They kept my car overnight because one of their machine was broken (the press to kick the bushing out of the arm), so the manager gave me a reduction, so $160 instead of $300 for the labor, pretty good.

But I have to come back for an alignement..

When I drove the car back, it seemed fine but when the
steering wheel is straight, the car go to the left. And it seems
it's a lot easier to turn the steering wheel to the right than left now..

I'm guessing both those issue will be fixed once I do the alignment.
I just hope he put the sway bar back correctly..
The manager said I would not have to do the alignement which I though
was weird but the mechanic said it should be done.

 

It needs an alignment, now. The manager is a retard.

 

well I got an alignement 2 weeks ago, and did another one today, because it seemed like it pulled to the right too much, since the first time I did it.
I also did another front wheel balancing because I had some steering wheel shaking at high speed.

Alignement seems ok now,
BUT I still have steering wheel shaking when driving at high speed (60+).
the weird thing is that it's not every time.. sometimes, I would be at 65 and the steering wheel is shaking, then a few minutes later, it's fine at the same speed... then it comes back later again..
Then something else I noticed, is when I brake, the steering wheel shakes a lot. so I'm guessing warp rotor.. but it was fine before..

It's driving me nuts..
the bushing helped, but I still have this very stiff ride too.. so I might replaced the front struts soon..

I wonder what is this on/off steering wheel shaking though.. if the ball joints or tie rod ends was bad, I'm guessing they would have told me when they showed me the messed up control arm bushing..
are those abovious to see ? or they need to take parts off to check them ?

Oh yeah, I also get once a while this pop noise..
Sigh.. I wonder if I almost totalled the car by taking it on that road.. or maybe it's one bad part that creating all those problems..