Car jerks to the right under medium to heavy acceleration

[scooter78]

!997 VW Jetta 2.0 lL. Kind of scary driving a car the intermittently moves to the right by itself. Any time you accelerate medium to hard the car will move intermittently mostly right. My son said that it also moves to the left. I haven't been able to duplicate that.
This car has been a mess since my son bought it. This is yet another odd problem. Any guesses?
Thanks, Scott

[JonahD_1985]

have you checked the front end at all? Allignment, tie rods, ball joints, control arms. Anything that affects the way the car handles. That's my best guess.

[VW_MK3_270]

sounds like you need an alignment. When was the last time you had your wheels aligned?

[HeavyMetalMovements]

Sounds like its definitely a front end issue...My bro corrado had the same issue on heavy acceleration the car would jerk left really hard and fast...Check tie rods (Inner and Outer),Control Arms(Bushing)

[djrima]

This may be really obvious, but also check to make sure the front tires are not bald or damaged.

[crannky]

Check the control arm bushings and tie rods for play. Usually the culprit.

[Dan J Reed]

^ that!

[germancarnut51]

If replacement is necessary, buy complete tierods, not tierod ends, and complete lower control arms, not balljoints, and front and rear control arm bushings. Complete tierods only cost $2-$5 more than just the outer or inner tierods, and complete lower control arms (with balljoint and bushings installed) cost less than buying the balljoint, and bushings and paying a shop to install/press the bushings into/onto the control arm/s (about $20-$30 per control arm). New Deeza ABA control arms are about $35 each, plus shipping from Rockauto.com.