2010GL550

It seems my wife's 2010 GL550 can't seem to hold an alignment for long. Maybe it's the way she drives, or maybe I just noticed it since I'm always checking the tires for uneven wear. They are crazy expensive and we don't seem to get that many miles out of them (usually the Continental Cross Contact UHP, but currently on the DWS).

So I had the occasion to use the wife's ride last week and noticed the steering wheel was pointed at the "11 o'clock" position while travelling in a straight line. Most likely it was a curb and/or a large pot hole...I will never know for certain.

So she scheduled an appointment with the local NTB, who we have a 2-year alignment warranty with. The last alignment was Sept 2016 - when the new set of tires were put on. The wife dropped it off and shortly thereafter I got the call. I quote, "the threads inside the tie rods are stripped and the wheel is loose". I responded by saying that I've never heard of such a thing and he offered to send photos to me. The photos seems meaningless to me, as the threads look fine and I'm still very skeptical. The Manager is supposed to call me tomorrow to elaborate. I should also note: they could not perform the alignment due to the tie rods; and the estimate was ~$275 installed.

Please share your thoughts. If the threads ARE stripped, wouldn't that have been done with one of the numerous alignments performed by NTB? Or is this something several people have experienced and it could be something considered "normal"?

marc hanna

It seems a little peculiar to me.

I've never heard of threads getting stripped on a tie rod end. I don't even know how that would happen, except if they took it off completely and cross-threaded it when putting it back on. Or maybe it was seized so bad that they stripped the threads while loosening it.