Ok, now I'm pissed... P.I.S.T. Pist.

[Leland Pate]

I had the steering rack pan off the car last night because I was removing the pedal cluster... .again ...and guess what I found...



My brand new (less than 3 months old) turbo tie rod boots are disintigrating! And I mean badly... both boots are totally torn up!

What the hell?

And low and behold... the tie rod joint rubber is the same way... the boots are ripped.

There is no excuse for this.... the old boots I took off the car were 15 to 20 years old and they were in fine shape.

How could this happen???

I know I need to fix this but I don't want to buy another set that does the same thing....

Right now i'm thinking "bad batch" of rubber.


Anyone else have this problem?

[jabb]

I remember seeing a recent post where someone had a problem with New Tierod Ends falling apart. Not sure if the post was here or on Rennlist. Might have more detail in that post It was in the last 2 weeks. Sorry I can not remember more of the details

[dickster]

jabb's right, the thread was here.

what a bummer

crack open a beer - its the weekend

[pwd72s]

Sad news indeed, Leland. I'm hoping the supplier will make it good for you?

[Jdub]

Uh, I guess I'd love to know the supplier prior to putting the set of Turbos in that I have. I really don't want to put subpar parts on my car, especially considering the time spent on R&R.

John

[Sean Hamilton]

Thanks for the heads up on this Leland, I was just about to order. I wont bother now.
Bummer, hope you can get some recourse. Were they OEM?

[FRED/LI]

Too bad UPS didn't lose the boots......

[john70t]

Hey Leland, I posted twice on my old rods which did the same after a year (probably sooner). I replaced just the ends with "Lemforder" brand which seem like a heavier duty replacement.
Here's a bad pic old the old one...sorry the brand is unknown

[Leland Pate]

Well I ordered these things from pelican so i'm sure they are OEM.

I can only assume that it is a bad batch of rubber... course that wouldn't make much sense considering all rubber parts on the tie rods are badly cracked.

What are the chances of that???

Maybe they are really old stock??? Or maybe at some point they were stored in a place that was... hell i dunno... too hot... or something?

It sucks though.

[Wayne 962]

Hmm, we haven't had any complaints about rubber boots failing that I know of. We'd be more than happy to replace them under warranty. We only sell the Lemforder brand of rod ends (OEM).

I've got these on my car, and haven't had a problem. Without trying to pass the buck here, it seems odd that both the rubber on the turbo tie rod and the rubber on the tie rod end would be failing. Those are two different parts, and I believe that they are made by two different manufacturers. It's very odd that they would both break down and fail at the same time.

I think that there is only one manufacturer of the turbo-tie rods - I don't think that there are any non-OEM ones...

I don't have any ready explanation for this. Is there anything unique about your car that might make them all disintegrate like this? Drive through any suspicious puddles lately? I'll call my supplier, and see if they have gotten any returns on these...

These boots do eventually crack and wear out, but they certainly shouldn't after only 3 months...

-Wayne

[Wayne 962]

Actually, I did just talk to Tom. We have not had a single warranty return on either the boots or the tie-rod ends. I was mistaken in my previous message, and there are aftermarket (non-OEM) Turbo Tie Rod kits out there. Tom said that we looked into selling these last year, but decided not to because the quality appeared 'iffy' when compared to the ones we currently get from our German supplier. The supplier who approached us regarding selling these aftermarket units mentioned that he sold a ton of them to Vertex.

Either way, I would be more than happy to send you out replacements for these. Email me direct at wayne@pelicanparts.com.

-Wayne