My wife got home today from work and said she had an issue with the car. Scraping sounds. I drove the car. I head and felt the scraping. Front passenger side. I hear it the most after making a right hand turn. SCRAPE SCRAPE SCRAPE... intermittently relative to speed. Stops once I drive straight.

Got back to my garage. Jacked the car up and turned the wheel and. I can see the caliber scraping the rim and there is a lot of inner tread wear. Is this the tie rod? Other front suspension parts gone bad?

 

Wheel bearing, ball joint, caliper bolts could be loose, etc. Shake it down and see if there's play and where its coming from or see if the caliper isn't tight. Based on the tire wear, the ball joint is probably bad, or the nut backed off of it and wallowed out the hole in the control arm.

 

Thanks. I did check out a few things tonight. Pushed and pulled the tire at 6&12 and 3&9 o'clock. Possible play at 6&12. Slightly easier to see that the bushings look a little old and dry. The tiny rubber boots(right name?) on where the tie rod connects to....steering knuckle? Sorry not the best with parts.

 

Would also be very helpful if you could provide the MY and engine in your post as well if there are aftermarket wheels fitted.

Has any work been recently performed on the brakes or suspension?

 

Sorry about that. YES that would be helpful haha. 2000 Jaguar S-Type 4.0. The car originally belonged to my dad. Stock wheels and brakes. It did have the lower control arms replaced on both driver and passenger sides. I'm not sure when the last device was done to replace the brake pads but they look fairly new.

As cheap as the parts are I ordered an outer tie rod and upper control arm+ballpoint for the passenger side. While under the car I saw how bad that tie rod looked. Anyone know how firm it should feel? I can wiggle it around by hand by gripping it like a handle and rotating it a few degrees.

Someone also mentioned to me that a strut mount that may be worn that isn't holding the wheel in proper position. But I just don't know.

 

The early cars have a tendency to wear the upper and especially the lower ball joints causing the car to 'wander' and putting excessive wear on the tyres.

The lower ball joints are not service parts from Jaguar, so you can have aftermarket ball joints installed by a reputable specialist shop, or purchase the suspension uprights from Jaguar for roughly 450$US each.

The upper ball joints do not seem to wear as quickly since there is not so much weight placed on them, but they can fail if the gaiters are split or torn and the grease has come out. The upper ball joints are part of the upper control arm, so the control arm must be replaced, requiring removal of the strut assembly to gain access to the bolts.

If there has been recent work done to the lower control arms, perhaps the brake caliper bolts have come loose or are missing if the calipers were removed at the time. A stuck brake caliper piston can also cause this symptom by extending the caliper too far making contact with the wheel. The S-Type calipers use phenolic pistons, which can be damaged if they were pushed in with metal pliers instead of a piston tool when renewing the brake pads.

 

I'm going to take a closer look at the caliper. The boots are certainly torn and deteriorated on the upper control arm ballpoint and on the outer tie rod. But I'm not getting a lot of play in the wheel like I think I would if these were causing the problem.

I can take a flathead screw drive and wedge it in the space between the rim and caliper and move the caliper into place away from the rim. I'll remove the caliper and reset the piston if it needs it and check the carrier bolts closer. I've done break jobs on mini's and vw's, anything special about the jag to get the caliper off?

I'd be happy if this fixes the problem even though I've already ordered parts. But those parts need to be replaced anyway I think.

 

Just remember at this late date ALL the rubber under the car will be cracked and falling apart. So don't replace something just because of the rubber condition. Make sure there is no slop or movement in that joint.

The outer tie rod ends in the front and the rear toe bars along with both front and rear sway bar end links are the easiest to change and they do wear out first. So I would change all of these now.

Lucky for you the lower ball joint/control arm has already been done. This is the major load bearing part and you can't service the ball joint separately. Although there have been people who have gotten them separately it's not easy.

The upper joint is available separately but for a home guy it is simpler to just change the entire arm out.
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