Does the Idler Arm affect the rear traction? My truck is fishtailing on wet roads, tires are good. The mechanic told me the idler arm needed to be replaced and this would clear up the traction problem.

 

You have to be joking. He actually told you a steering component was causing problems with traction? Is crack or meth a common problem in your area?

 

Ease up on the "go" pedal! Ha, ha!

Sorry; I couldn't resist. To answer your question, no. That's like having a bunion cause a nose bleed.

 

I wouldn't get them to do any AC repair either. They may tell you it's a faulty tailgate latch causing the problem.

 

i wouldnt want that guy working on my car/truck.

 

If the idler arm has play, it DOES need to be replaced though.

 

true, depends on if it's swerving instead of fishtailing

 

Could be the muffler bearings that's causing this too!! LOL

 

In short, no way. If the idler arm really was that loose, you might notice but it would be a steering issue not a traction issue. From my experience, this seems to be a common part for mechanics to blame when they don't know what is really at fault or they just don't want to deal with it. For example, my truck is originally from the northeast and I had a mechanic down here tell me that instead of having a bad alignment, I really needed a new idler arm and pitman arm (both were in perfect condition) because it was easier to blame it on that rather than admit that they just didn't want to deal with a little bit of surface rust on the tie rods. To solve the fishtailing problem, just take it easy on the gas but don't mess with the front end.

 

i had a guy at brake check in cs tell me i needed new upper ball joints because they were slipping and thats what caused it to pull right not an alignment issue. when he showed me and i told him the ball joints were replaced less than 20K ago i asked him to see if it was loose and thats all that was wrong.