Question Bad Ball Joints AGAIN !!!

[MATRDguy]

Had my ball joints on my 02 done under the recall....100,000 miles later they are bad AGAIN !! Has anyone had this experience?
What is the life of these joints?

I do 98% Hwy driving.

Any comments/ suggestions ? ( yeah I called the dealer who installed them and they said the warranty was only good for 1 yr so....)

Any Ideas would be appreciated. How difficult is it to change them out yourself?

[packeroni]

What signs were you seeing to know you needed to take it in for eval?

[5 Speed]

I did a DIY tutorial on here and if you can find it, it is really pretty easy. The only hard part was getting the rusted cotter pin out. The ball joint puller cost about ten bucks at harbor freight and putting new ones on gave me a nice peace of mind driving down the road. I think 100K for a set of ball joints ain't bad. If we could actually have a zerk fitting on them I think they might go longer but the sealed units are convenient in the beginning but usually don't live the long life.

[MATRDguy]

There were no 'signs' I just happened to take it in to get the tires rotated and the guy told me one of my sway bar end links was misssing and my BJ were worn.

I reordered some new endlinks on flea bay, I'll get those in and do the lower BJ again w/ the help of the tutorial.

Still have to do my poly steering bushings too...OMG so much to do.

Probably snapped the endlink driving on the Mass Pike. Ive been on trail rides that werent as filled w/ potholes as the Pike is.

Thanks for the imput

[ICON]

100K out of ball joints isn't that bad. Chevy S10's, Blazers, Explorers and some F150's go through ball joints every 30K. My regular mechanic was seeing full sized ford vans(4wd) coming in w/15K needing new ball joints. Granted i got 115K on my '01 and everything is stock and tight. I'd check the ball joints myself to make sure they're indeed bad since i've had people tell me ball joints were bad but upon inspection they were just fine. Ones deffinition of "gone" can be different from person to person, especially if there's money to be made.

[MATRDguy]

Yeah, I'll crawl under there to see what they look like, just put an offer in on Flea bay for some new ones...50.00 isnt bad. I have to replace the end links too ( as one id TOTALLY gone) snapped off. May as well do this too...I just bought my 1st house so I wont have too much time to work on the 'beast' so better do it before my g/f gets her hands on my spare $$.

[DevinSixtySeven]

Before you order new joints, borrow (or buy, they're cheap) a large 2-jaw puller from Autozone/Checker/Pep Boys/Etc...pop the stud out of the upper arm, and try to move the stud side to side in the cup, as it would when the suspension moves. If it's really, really easy...it might be "tight" as you're able to judge, but easy to move around...then it's time to replace the joint. If it's tight, and takes a bit of force to start moving, it's still fine.

The same applies to lower ball joints, tie rod ends, and in general any spherical bearing.

100k is good for joints...you could also just swap 'em and move on.

-Sean

[MATRDguy]

Yeah, figured I would just change them after 100K....I found some aftermakt ones on ebay pretty reasonable so I'll do that and the links @ the same time. I'll just have to pay for the alignment after that.

My 2 projects are that and doing the stering bushings...still have those and my stearing is a little slopy.