I need to get new outter tie rods and wanna do them myself...well not myself but not at a shop...I'm still learning about cars and a friend of mine is trying to tell me that a tie rod and a tie rod end is the same thing...somebody tell me i'm right and say that they are not the same things...

 

I assume you have an older car, if not let me know the year.Tie rods are made up of three peices usually. An inner tie rod end, an adusting sleeve and an outer tie rod end. The tie rod ends are threaded, one right hand and one left hand so that when the adjusting sleeve is turned, the entire assembly either gets longer or shorter. This allows for the toe setting of the front tires. My advice is to do the whole thing at once, remove the old tie rod assembly and set it on the ground, next take your new tie rod assembly and adjust the tie rod ends so they are the same length as the old assembly. This way when you put it back together the toe setting will be close enough to get you to an alignment shop. BTW my reason for telling you to do the whole is that is the outers are bad the inners are close behind, get new adjusting sleeves as they are cheap.

 

and let me stress the importance of an alignment after replacing something like this. if you have a large corporate shop nearby like monro muffler and service, they ussually dont charge a rack fee and you can get a free inspection of the parts, just seem like you might get it fixed there.