Im getting a horrible grinding/squealing noise when turning the wheels. It does it really bad when turning right but not as much when turning left. Some people have said that i have air in my power steering system so I tried bleeding the P/S system by jacking up the front end, opening the fluid reservoir, and then cranked the wheel lock to lock. The noise goes away when the tires are off the ground but when I drop it back down the noise comes back after a day or 2. Any ideas on what could be causing this?

 

air in the PS system would be more of a moan.

grinding/squealing is most likely your ball joints and/or your tie rod ends.

 

well I dont know much about cars. but where exactly are the tie rods located?

 

inner knuckle -- its a rod that comes from the middle of the truck and connects to the knuckle.. it will have a rubber boot on it

 

Kellernr

I have the same problem right now on my 01 Edge, when i jack it up and turn theres no noise but when i put the tires on the ground it makes the noise. Does yours squeak when you rock the front end back and forth?

 

yeah. It squeaks when i push up and down on the passenger side. Nothing from the drivers side. I took it to my buddys place today to let him figure it out. Hes thinking tie rods or ball joints like others have posted.

 

Yeah thats exactly what is going on with my truck, I priced some Moog Ball Joints at advance for 45.00 a piece. did you friend say you had to replace all 4

 

No clue yet. Hes gonna call me in the morning

 

Im hoping it isnt the ball joints. I just had the upper control arms and ball joints replaced about a month ago. Im not dropping another $500 on this. Hopefully its something thehy screwed up so its under warranty

 

I'm no mechanic but I was searching through these forums and found that another possibility could be the cv joint.

 

Check out this video on youtube

YouTube - F150 Squeaky Ball Joint Replacement

Its a 2004 F-150 4X4 and he goes throught the procedures to change out all the ball joints. It looks similar to the ranger. This is something to at least get familiar with replacing the ball joints.

 

Its the lower ball joint on the passenger side. Had it replaced and everything is great now.

 

Sounds good, I just took mine to a shop today and they said it was lower ball joint on the passenger side too, as well as the tie rod. So hes just going to replace the tie rod, ball joint, and do an alignment. Heres the good part, through these guys, they will charge me 240 for everything, I had previously set up an appointment with a different shop and they were gonna charge 421 + tax for the lower ball joints on both sides. It could help that i know a guy who works there and introduced me to this mechanic.

One question however, does it make sense to just replace the one side were its squeaking? the mechanic sd not to bother with the other side.

 

look at it this way, why fix something that isnt broke? ball joints do not go bad in pairs, therefore you can get by with just replacing whichever one is bad.

 

its always a good idea to replace suspension parts like that in pairs.. Not uppers with lowers on one side, if one lower is bad, replace both lowers..

and idk what it takes to wear out a TRE on a ranger, after 3 years of abuse, they were still nice and tight on mine when I did the SAS...

 

Yes. Replace in pairs. It will be impossible to align if the other side is worn at all. It can cause pulling issues, and can possibly wear out the new parts very quick. I work on semi trucks, and if one TRE is bad, we replace both. Just don't want to risk it. Besides, its in the shop anyway, the mechanic has all the right tools out. Why not just get it all done, then you know everything is ok.

That's what I would do anyways...

 

Now im leary of this, this mechanic works on big rigs too, thats all their shop does but i'm related to 2 guys that work there so they set me up with this mechanic, Im gonna call him tuesday and ask him about this because my appointment is wednesday. He said only the passenger side had problems, the other side was fine, we cranked the wheels back and forth over the pit and he said te passenger side was the only side vibrating and making noise.