So I started my new semester in college a few weeks ago and as usual, the car has picked this time to start its crap...it just hates it when my full attention isn't devoted to it. On my way to school there is a particularly bad stretch of road that is in terrible conditions. Lots of pot holes, cracks in the pavement, etc.

After going there one day last week I left school and proceeded back on this same road. Only this time I noticed I felt the bumps and imperfections in the road much more than on the way there. When I hit large bumps or go over rail road tracks I notice that the front end tends to shudder quite a bit. Sometimes its extremely violant. Also, at highway speed there is a noticeable vibration and hum that can be felt in the entire car and through the steering wheel. Keep in mind that I did not actually hit anything or run over a large pot hole. Now I know that I do need a couple of tie rod ends, but could that be causing all of these issues? Thanks for any help you can give.

It could be a combination of things. The tie rod ends can cause the shudder and vibration as the wheels will have a hard time straightening back out after a bump. The noise and vibration could be a bad wheel hub.

I suspected that a wheel hub may be playing a part in it. I didn't realize what you said about the tie rods till just now...I gueses several successive miles of bad roadway may have further thrown them out of whack. I'll start by biting the bullet and getting that taken care of.

Consider the wheel like a gyroscope, but spinning on its side. It will want to continue to spinning vertically, like a gyroscope would horizontally. If you give the gyroscope a good enough jolt, it will wobble around until it finally uprights itself, which you can make happen quicker if you stabilized it by hand. The wheels react similarly, and the suspension, and steering system helps to stabilize it.

Another reason to get to the tie rod ends is that you don't want to be driving down the road and suddenly having one of your wheels pointing sideways.

It was a bad left-outter tie rod and poorly balanced tires. Problem solved.