I took the van into a shop this morning; a different one that I took it to in April that told us the thumping noise in the front end was just road noise. As it turns out, it wasn’t road noise, it was the bad wheel bearings, tie rods, and ball joints. And replacing everything would cost just over a thousand dollars. Beth and I talked about it for a little while but finally decided that the best thing would be to just get the van fixed and keep it as long as we can.