I have a question about the inner tie rod ends on my 97 SSEi. How often do they go bad? I've had the new ones sitting on my desk for two years and I've refused to put them in. I noticed the inner ends have threads that screw on to the rack. I had my alignment done about 4000 miles ago and I get a little bit of pull on flat roads from time to time. I'm also getting a bit of play in the wheel, not a lot, but more than I used to get. I'm wondering if this could be an inner tie rod issue? The car has 194000 miles on her but all of the suspension components have less than 33000 on them. Any input is appreciated

Only way to tell is to put the car on a rack and physically check each component. I suggest taking it to a shop that can pinpoint it quickly.

you can check them easy enough, the car has to be on its own weight, and have someone move the wheel back and forth from 10 to two position. if there is any slop even a small bit back and forth in the rod ends they are bad

You can have a bad ball joint and the car will wander.

guess i am not sure what "all" of the suspension means. that would mean to me struts, ball joints, control arm bushings, upper mounts etc. either way the procedure i wrote will check the tie rod ends

Checking them that way worked for me, as soon as I gave it a tug fro 10 to 2, I could tell they were bad, so I replaced the inner, and went ahead and replaced the outer tie rod as well, after I had them off you could really see how bad they were.
Got an alignment afterwards and the steering felt a lot better, of course I still had bad tires that had to be replaced, the belts inside them were separating, and it gave me a bit of vibration/wobble.

I could have had a shop do it, but I bought an inner tie rod tool from Harbor Freight Tools, and did the job myself, of course the tool I bought needed me to take a dremel to it before it would work like it is supposed to, so the job may be best left to a shop with a lift, and better quality tools.

OK I apologize for the lack of response on my end but my job'* been killing me. I replaced everything in the front end and most of the back. Ball joints, outer tie rod ends, control arm bushings, subframe bushings, stabilizer links, sway bar bushings, moog quick struts on the front, kybs on the back, new springs on the back. I replaced all of this at 163000 miles and the car now has 194000 and change. I've noticed since I changed all of the front end components that the suspension doesn't feel as stiff as the stock that was on it. Everything that needed to be tightened at ride height was done so and everything is torqued to oem specs. Sorry I'm just trying to cover all grounds. The only thing I haven't replaced is the inner tie rod ends and the c.v. joints. I've even replaced all of the motor and transmission mounts too. But back to the original "issue". I believe it has the play in the steering wheel so I'll check it the way that was suggested and I'll get back to you guys. Thank you for the suggestions.

thats the reason i dont do quick struts. just on your car there are two totally different suspensions. the sse and the se, ones a floaty car and ones pretty tight sporty sedan. and most of those quick struts have one part number for all the cars those physically fit. that could be any of 5 or 6 model/trim variations. i get kyb struts for sporty applications. and for my bonnie it feels exactly as it was when i got it almost new. but you would have to put your original springs on it if you havent thrown them out. i never had moog, but monroe tend to be toward the squishy side.

Kyb has a quick strut on rockauto. It has the excel g strut and they claim the springs and such are oem. Do you think those would be ok? They didn't have them when I bought my struts otherwise I would have got those.

You still might get Se springs, but I have had good luck with the group excel