has anyone lube their tire rode ends.
 

Has anyone lube their tire rod ends. Of course the x5 does not come with a zerk fitting for lube. There are people who would tap their own zerk fitting into the part and there are people who use a needle adapter on their lube gun to puncher their boots to inject lube.

What is your thought on this. I would think taping a zerk fitting would involved drilling which will introduce contamination into the joint and pouncing a hold into the boot does not seem like a good idea to me.

What is your though on this.

I assume most of you just leave it as is. Do you have to replace your tire rod end? And if so when?

I had to replace mine as the toe adjusters were seized and they couldn't do an alignment, the part lasted me 10 years and 70k miles of Northeast weather however so it doesn't make sense to me to tap zerk fittings in for greasing, when I removed the originals, the inner joints looked plenty lubricated, however the joint was noticeably looser than new rods.

I replaced mine with Meyle HD tie rod assemblies for $65 apiece if I recall correctly, and I probably won't have to do it again for another 10 years.

The quality of tie rod ends these days is far better than it was years ago when grease fittings were a part of them.