I recently changed rotors, brake pads, replaced LCA from another HHR that I put new TRW ball joints with 12mm bolts and rear bushings, outer tie rod ends, sway bar links and struts. I did a close alignment with a tape measure, but it still pulled to the left a little. I took it to pepboys to have it aligned. The mechanic said he had to swap wheels, front left and front right to keep it from pulling. The tires are both worn slightly on the inside edge. Wheel bearings are original (140K).

Had an incredibly hard time removing ball joint from steering knuckle, used pry bar and floor jack to finally get it off, there was a piece of rubber ball joint boot stuck in the pinch part of steering knuckle. The pry bar broke a small piece of aluminum off the bottom corner of the steering knuckle, it was just a tad larger than a grain of rice. This aluminum got wedged into the pinch point and when I put the new ball joint in and torqued it, it was still loose, without me knowing. Pulled hard to the left, so about a week later tore it back apart and found the piece of aluminum wedged into the pinch. Cleared it out and retorqued everything. I do have another drivers side steering knuckle, but don’t think that that is the issue.

 

If you removed that piece of aluminium in the knuckle, that would mess up your alignment, have to have it redone. That shake can be the steering rack has loosened up over the years, the LCA rear bolts aren’t torqued properly, the strut to knuckle bolts aren’t torqued properly and or the tires are cupped.

suggest trying move the rear tires to the front and the fronts to the rear, see if that works. Depending on the wear pattern you might need new tires.

 

Smooth inside wear is from bad toe out. If it is lumpy it is bad bearings. Adjusting the toe affects the camber and caster. Toe is the only available adjustment.

 

Start with the tires. (That your mechanic was able to make a difference by switching tires around is a clue.)

Size brand model miles? You could try balancing but they may not even be round. Jack up each wheel one buy one and rotate it with a brick close to it and look for out-of-roundness and wobble.

Having learned from errors of my foolish youth, I now buy only top shelf tires.

Order of trust:

1). MICHELIN
1). MICHELIN
1). MICHELIN
4). CONTINENTAL
5). PIRELLI
…
…
​​​​​…
100). FIRESTONED (Burned EVERY time. ALWAYS shook. ALWAYS cured with better tires. Bases HHR tires were Firestoned. And they sucked.)

Historically, most tires sucked until Michelin upped the game and set new standards for precision and reliability.

(Just my opinion based upon experience.)

 

Swapped front tires to back and runs sooo much smoother. This is my hillbilly alignment tool that I made out of 1-1/2 angle iron. It gets it in the ball park. I like the fact that I can press on each side very hard to find movement within the suspension parts. My HHR and me have a love hate relationship. I hate working on them, but I learn so much about it thanks to this forum and YouTube. Thanks guys.

 

So tires are your main issue, run them for now then replace all four maybe next spring!
as for the alignment tool you made there are loads of them on Temu, EBay and Amazon.
problem is the LCA doesn’t push up on the suspension for an accurate alignment.

 

Sooo.. pretty obviously a bad tire in the mix, right? Or a faulty balance, at least.

May or may not be relevant here, but one weird thing I learned the hard way, and wouldn’t have believed it had I not experienced it, is how easily tires can spin on the rims, when freshly installed with excessive or improper goo (used to prevent damage to the bead and to seal it.) Can happen on any tire during braking, drive wheels only under acceleration. This is one reason it’s so much better if a tire is manufactured to be close to perfect balance without correction.

Quality matters. Precision matters.

“Good enough,” ain’t.

 

Good point. There are far to many off brands of tires that are cheaper and less expensive, but also less quality these days . But in the long run cost 2X the good quality brand names we have come to trust, but then again many brands have been sold off or bought up and still sold but at a lesser quality. Uniroyal , BFGoodrich , come to mind.

 

Uh... Michelin owns Uniroyal and BFGoodrich and Kleber.

 

They are low tier tires up here. Like Firestone , not noted for high quality!