MBP 03

My '03 TL-S has about 84K miles on it and in the last few thousand miles, I've noticed some pretty accelerated tire wear on the inside of the driver's side front tire and a little more than normal wear on the inside of the passenger side front. I have not hit any huge potholes or bumped curbs in that time. I've owned the car for about 7K miles and the last alignment was done about 15K miles ago. The car drives nice and straight, but I do hear some squeaking coming from the left front when the suspension is moving and when I'm turning the wheels. I have checked out the front end and everything seems to be tight (ball joints, lower control arm, tie rods), but I'm not sure what is considered "normal" for the upper control arm.

When I take a large pry bar and put the tip of it on the spring and use that as leverage to put pressure against the control arm, I get a fair amount of up and down movement in the control arm and it seems to be coming from the bushings. The ball joint looks to be tight. In comparison, the lower control arm is 100% solid, which is what I'm used to seeing.

I've heard that the upper control arm bushings on these cars are not the best design and could use some firming up, but I'm concerned that maybe mine have too much play in them and the arms need to be replaced.

What amount of play, if any, are you guys seeing with new upper control arms?

Thanks!

fsttyms1

Before jumping to what might be worn, go get the alignment checked, it doesnt matter that it was just done 15k ago, it could be off from the beginning or it could have gotten off from hitting a bump and not realizing it . Wear on both insides of the tires is typically a "Toe" issue.

MBP 03

As an update, I got an alignment done today and the machine told us that the left front tire had a slight toe out (within specs), but the right front tire had -0.24 deg. of toe, which was way out.

Now that toe is at 0 deg., that should take care of the tire wear issue, but I'm still curious about how much play there should be at the upper control arm bushings.

3.2TLc

The "toe" being out more than likely caused the accelerated tire wear. With the new alignment, either rotate the worn tires to the rear.... or buy a new set for the front to evaluate future wear patterns and driveability.

MBP 03

I'll keep an eye on things for sure. The worn tires are now on the rear and the car will be due for a set of new tires shortly anyway, but I'll use the current tires that are on the front as test mules to see if there is any other unusual wear going on before I get new rubber.