Ball Joints on 2001 Sport

[Abraxsis]

Hey All,

Well Im loving my X Sport, but yesterday I went to have it aligned (dealership still refusing to do it) and they told me the ball joints were shot. Now seeing theyre still the stock ones Im cool with them being shot, but they said it was going to be like 350.00 labor to install new ones because of some special thing about newer X's suspension. Something about the OE control arm not fitting better quality ball joints, and if I wanted to put aftermarket parts on(which is obviously preferable given the crappy non-Zerk's pieces of crap that Ford calls stock) I would have to install new control arms to match. I wasnt there so some of what they said might have gotten lost in the story telling, but the 350.00 is something that was right. Isnt that kind of high? Any truth to the special circumstances of the 01 suspension?

Abraxsis

 

[Rick]

btt

 

[Blee1099]

Hey All,

Well Im loving my X Sport, but yesterday I went to have it aligned (dealership still refusing to do it) and they told me the ball joints were shot. Now seeing theyre still the stock ones Im cool with them being shot, but they said it was going to be like 350.00 labor to install new ones because of some special thing about newer X's suspension. Something about the OE control arm not fitting better quality ball joints, and if I wanted to put aftermarket parts on(which is obviously preferable given the crappy non-Zerk's pieces of crap that Ford calls stock) I would have to install new control arms to match. I wasnt there so some of what they said might have gotten lost in the story telling, but the 350.00 is something that was right. Isnt that kind of high? Any truth to the special circumstances of the 01 suspension?

Abraxsis

They are blowing hot air up your a$$. Did they mention if the uppers or lowers were bad? I can understand if it was the uppers since on the 4WD/AWD models, the entire upper control arm has to be replaced. The uppers usually run around $100 to $120 a piece. If its the lowers, they should run you about $40 a piece for ones with zerk fittings. When you add in labor, that price sounds about right however you could do it yourself. There is a useful thread on it listed in the following area, http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=54

 

[konaboy]

The irony to this is they did the alignment knowing the joints were "shot". After you have the new ones installed it will more than likely have to be aligned again. I replaced an upper on the passenger side last spring. It was a pretty straight forward replacement. New Moog upper contol arm with ball was $120 and about 40-45 minutes labor. I understand the lowers are a bit more fussy.