One problem related to steering idler arm has been reported for the 1999 Chevrolet Astro. The most recently reported issues are listed below.
On the way home from a conference I noticed my left tire making noise, I inspected it visually and found no obvious problems, I proceeded home and had a blow out of the tire which I found out later to be related to a defective idler arm. This in turn caused me to havea accident with damage to my van and another car. At 57000 (approxiamate) miles the idler arm should not have been worn that severely to cause an accident. I would like to see someone investigate this problem and see if other Astro vans have had this problem before. Thank you.