When I go over bumps the passenger side clunks pretty bad. I push on the car from each side on the front and it is not bouncy.

I noticed a while back some clunking sound when turning my steering wheel from side to side.

I lifted each side of the front tires and found some play. I only hear the clunks from the passenger side, but the driver side also has some play.


I have a 2008 MCS with 72K miles.

What could this be?

Should I be very worried?
Can I make this worse and more expensive if I continue to drive like this?

Oddly enough, the steering feels quite fine.

 

Mine does the same thing like in the first video. I think its the control arm bushings but I could be wrong.

 

Whoa, that's pretty bad play! Yeah, check the lower control arm bushings first: they don't last very long.

With that much wobble it should be incredibly obvious if they're bad.

 

You should not have ANY side to side play in the front wheels. Based on those videos, I would check tie rod ends. I don't think a rear control arm bushing would move that easy.

 

You'd think the car would go all over the place in terms of steering, but it handles just fine, just the clunking on the right front side. I was surprised that both front sides wheels wobble so much. It does require a bit if force to make it wobble as shown on the video. I tried jiggling from top to bottom, but it doesn't budge, so I guess that's good.

How would I go about testing for bushings or tie rod ends? Not really sure where to start.

 

For the tie rods, jack the car up, take the wheel off, and the tie rod is right there. Wiggle the knuckle, like you did in the video above, and it should be apparent where the movement is coming from.

 

Aperrently, it is the rack and pinion.

 

are you sure that it's not a bad strut?

Bryan

 

Tried to replace the upper and lower ball joints, but there is play in the rack.

 

I didn't say anything about ball joints....I was referring to the front strut.

How do you check for play inside the steering rack? If it's a bad rack, you need to jack up the car and try to work both front wheels side to side. If you have one wheel that has movement, and not the other....it's not the rack. Have you checked the inner tie rod ends?

Bryan

 

That looks horrible and dangerous. I would suggest you to not to drive the car before this is fixed. This is due to some sort of ruptured bushing probably. Could be rack but I would suspect tie rod.