My apartment complex has a bunch of speed bumps, the roads have lots of potholes and I’ve hit quite a few deep potholes unintentionally so I’m sure this was a result of all that. Anyway, I have had issues with the ball joints and struts before and this sounded very similar as I could typically only hear the sound when on bumps so I didn’t think much of it and was just going to wait a while before taking it to the shop. Well, I started to notice as I would turn the steering wheel right specifically when driving more than 40mph, I could hear a wobbling sound made by driver side front tire. I was already going to be replacing my front rotors and pads so as I took the driver side tire off for that, I noticed that even with all lug nuts tightened and the jack lifting that section up, the tire would wobble back and forth which certainly isn’t normal. I knew it would either be the hub assembly or the outer tie rod and after further investigation, I found that the outer tie rod was worn and the joint was very loose.

If I had kept driving at highway speed for another week I’m certain the joint could have disconnected and the wheel could have just fallen off and caused an accident. But I got it fixed at the auto shop up the street a few days later and had them replace that driver side outer tie rod and give the car an alignment which cost just under $300. Now it is much better, no scary sound as you turn right at high speeds and no unusual sound when going over speed bumps.