one side of front tie rod ends was replaced by the dealer at least a year ago. I can't find the records for it, but I assume they did not do an alignment on it.

After they did that, the steering wheel had excessive play in it. It had zero before it went to the dealer. It was my mother's car then, but I took it back and complained, got me nowhere but "that's normal for its age." What a load of *****, I hate that dealer, always have.

Anyway, the indy shop got a LOT of play out of the wheel, now it has maybe a free inch or so without feeling like its attached to anything. Before it was 3 or more. Scray, I know!

I'm going back to the indy shop tomorrow, and I'm staying with the car then and will have all that checked (possibly again) before I give the go ahead for steering box replacement. The guys there are cool about me having a set of eyes (and even sometimes hands) on my car while it's on the lift, which is a good sign.

BTW the car has 265K and still going strong! The loaner they gave me last time was an 86 or 87 260E with 622,xxx on the clock, I *swear* this is true. Sad thing was, it was 10x as tight as my car! Oh well, that's another good sign for the work they do.