My car is a 2000 Dodge Caravan with 62,000 miles, V6 engine.

I am going insane here. Here's my issue that I am hoping someone can give me some advice on:

My van began making noises when turning wheel to the left and when going over bumps. It was a broken spring kind of noise... like when kids jump on a bed. This was the beginning of my problem. Was told it was the rack and pinion... got a second opinion, was told it was not, but instead was the struts. Replaced the struts (however it was by a friend of a friend who put them on the wrong sides of the vehicle and rotated the thing at the top of the struts to make them fit, I had no idea until it was too late). Noise was still there, and now I had struts on the wrong side of car. Another place said it was the sway bar. Replaced the sway bar and had the struts put onto correct sides. THAT 'springy' noise went away after that, but a new noise was immediately heard.

Now, when wheel is turned to the right there is a squeaking kind of rubber rubbing on rubber noise. Was told by one place it was the struts, then the outer sway bar, then the sway bar. Decided to get the inner and outer parts of sway bar replaced, just to elimate options of this noise. Well, of course the noise is STILL there. Was told again it was the rack. My steering has no issues however. It steers completely normal and feels completely normal.

Someone help! The mechanics that have looks at my car have pretty much thrown their hands up as to what this is, if not the rack. What could be making this noise? Could the struts be doing it because they were rotated at the top to fit on wrong side of car, could this noise be the rack even though I have NO issues with the steering? What other parts in the steering could this be to be making a rubber rubbing on rubber noise? I hope this is something simple, but SO much money has been spent already on parts, alignments, and labor that have not fixed the problem! I am so terrified to spend the thousands of dollars on a rack and STILL have the problem.

PLEASE offer any suggestions? Thank you so much!

My bet is that the sway bar end links are bad--go with Moog parts, lubricating them with NLGI #2 synthetic grease. Easy to replace. Make sure they use a torque wrench to tighten them to specs.

If you want, disconnect the sway bar end links from the sway bar, first, and see if the noise goes away. If the noise goes away, then you know that the end links are bad.

Look under the van at the tie rod ends. Count the adjusting threads at each end.
They should be pretty close in thread count. If there's a lot on one side, and very few on the other, we call that alignment "jacked to one side" which could make a tire rub the body on a full crank turn.