randomness | Auto repair shop recommendations wanted, Port Jervis, NY.

Heya all! Victoria and I are currently in a Comfort Inn in Port Jervis, NY. Anyone have any recommendations for a reliable auto repair shop?

The steering wheel suddenly developed a decided occasional shimmy. Then, we started hearing a knocking sound. At about that point we decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and we pulled into the motel lot.

A quick shake of the passenger's side front wheel revealed significant play.

From this, I suspect something along the lines of a tie rod end about to fail. Anyone have another diagnosis, from what I'm describing? The onset of this particular set of symptoms was pretty fast: from first odd inklings to "pull it off the road" was sixty miles at most.

If it's what I think it is, failure tends to cause you to lose the ability to steer. I think this would be a bad thing to happen, particularly when going downhill at highway speed, but generally it's a lousy thing to have happen whenever you're driving.

Tomorrow, we look for repair shops. Anyone have either a recommendation for or against in this neighborhood?

We made it pretty far today. All the way from Cleveland! A couple of hours more and we'd have made it to Vic's friends in Putnam Co. But hey, you don't mess with this, if it's what I suspect.

Mostly, I'm glad it didn't actually fail while we were rolling downhill through the Poconos with a semi tailgating us at 75 mph. We'd be flat!