[shlim8]

My car suffered a bad case of steering shake which took me months to sort out... While I can't tell u exact what your problem might be, I can share the following:

1. It is difficult to diagnose whether the control arm and control arm linkage bushings are bad while they are still installed on the car, unless they are really really gone... Mine was rock solid with no play when my mechanic tested them by lifting up the car and shaking on the wheels and knocking on arms. BUT when they were disconnected from each other, the control arms had a lot of lateral play. The control arm linkage had slight play on them.

2. My outer tie rods looked good too, with no play, but when the mechanic tried to remove them, the ball joint just dropped out of the mounting point on the hub (?) after the nut was removed... no need to press them out.. In my case, changing the outer tie rods had the biggest impact on the shimmy.

Not to scare you but in the end, what I found on my car was:
1. front shocks shaft badly shaking but no leaks
2. front control arms (end bushings) bad
3. front control arms linkage bushings slightly bad
4. tie rod end one side bad
5. front rims badly dented

I now have all new suspension components... I now still have very very slight movement from the steering, maybe my wheel balancing is off, or because I now have 7mm spacers...but very acceptable. I'll be doing the inner tie rods next - more of preventive maintenance and because the new parts have been sitting around for the past 6 months... it's the only relatively cheap and easily renewable part in the front suspension/steering component left my car !

These cars are very sensitive to slight imperfections in the suspension/steering components !