ball joints replaced now brake noise?

[metalmilitia]

ok, I had my tires replaced 2 weeks ago. long story short they had a special where you got a 12 month wheel alignment with tires. when I picked it up they told me my ball joints & upper control arms were shot. got them replaced at my normal mechanic shop Friday & took it back to the tire place for the alignment yesterday. it was raining when I picked it up from both shops so I couldnt hear it but this morning I noticed my front brakes making a grinding noise. I also noticed when I picked it up yesterday from the alignment shop the pedal seemed like it didnt hold pressure normally. you'd mash the brake & it slowly bled down close to the floor. it felt a little like this after they put the tires on too but not nearly to this degree. what should I check first that they could have screwed with? I called & asked the place that did the alignment and they assured me they wouldnt have touched the brakes doing the alignment. the brakes are only a couple months old and were fine before having this done. could they have got into the caliper by accident somehow & screwed something up during the alignment? not familiar with the alignment process & how these places do it. could torquing the lugs too tight with an impact cause brake problems? I am at a loss as to whats going on & what caused it.

 

[abarkl]

"I called & asked the place that did the alignment and they assured me they wouldnt have touched the brakes doing the alignment."
How else would you expect them to stay in business in this economy.

I just replaced my upper ball joints yesterday and my guess would be either the pads were installed backwards, the anti-rattle clips are missing, or maybe the caliper bolts are loose.

 

[esclamada]

check your brake fluid level, that's seems like symptoms of air in the system. Needs a proper brake bleed.

I suspect the ball joint RR might have caused it than the alignment shop.




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[metalmilitia]

would you have to remove the brakes/pads to replace the ball joints?

dont know how this didnt make it in but I also got the rear brakes & parking brake replaced when they did the ball joints & control arms. thing thats bugging me is until the tires the brakes have felt fine since I replaced the front brakes months ago. then I had tires put on and they felt squishy like that. drove it for a couple days & they got better. had all that work done at the other shop, they felt fine. took it back to the tire shop & they felt squishy again. it feels exactly like when you have air in the lines but except they didnt get any tighter after I pumped them about 1000 times. felt like they got worse. then after driving it for 2 days they feel normal again. I checked the fluid both times they felt weird and it was spot on perfect.

starting to think abarkl isnt too far off base here, especially with the reputation NTB has. they wanted $2000 to fix it and I got all the same work they quoted done for $800. I just cant figure out what they could be doing to catch them. I could just be paranoid but cant explain why the brakes only feel funny when NTB has the tires off. thast why i asked about the impact.

 

[abarkl]

Some of the brake symptoms you describe are similar to those I had last year after flushing all my lines and causing the 9 year old master cylinder to fail. Cheap (under $100) and easy enough to replace provided you know how to properly bench bleed the new cylinder.
To say the least it got real exciting when coming to a stop one out of about every three to five and having no brakes at all until you pumped them once or twice. My wife certainly didn't appreciate it until I got it fixed!

 

[Exproblems]

would you have to remove the brakes/pads to replace the ball joints?>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Yes, they would have to take a part the brakes, calipers and rotors, basically, they would have to tear down the whole arm assembly to R&R the lower and upper ball joints. To get the lowers out especially, they had to get everything out of their way. To do the wheel alignment, they would not have to touch your brakes or calipers to make alignment adjustments for your steering. Hopefully, they didn't purposely tamper with your brakes to get more work out of you or that some half assed mechanic they have working there, didn't damage something by accident. If your brakes were fine before the tire install, then you would have to look at the tire shop as the source of your current brake issue.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> it feels exactly like when you have air in the lines but except they didnt get any tighter after I pumped them about 1000 times. felt like they got worse. then after driving it for 2 days they feel normal again. I checked the fluid both times they felt weird and it was spot on perfect.>>>>>>>>>>>

Just pumping the brake pedal without "bleeding" the brake calipers won't help anything. You need to bleed the air out of each line going to each caliper one at a time. This is the only way to restore full brake pedal pressure by getting rid of any air in the system. If they over tightened your tire lug nuts with an impact wrench, which they probably did( because most of these tire shop knucklheads always hammer those lug nuts down), that could harm your wheel bearings, but it shouldn't cause your brake pedal to feel spongy. If I were you, get a good breaker bar and a socket and loosen and re-torque your lug nuts to specs as a precaution.

 

[Exproblems]

To say the least it got real exciting when coming to a stop one out of about every three to five and having no brakes at all until you pumped them once or twice. My wife certainly didn't appreciate it until I got it fixed!

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

What, you forgot to tell your wife about the back up plan "Fred Flintstone" style brakes?

 

[metalmilitia]

got a chance to look at it Monday and the grinding noise was coming from the heat shield being bent in & rubbing. just like the first time NTB had it, this time the brakes returned to solid feeling after about 50 miles or so. at no other time besides when I first pick it up from NTB has it ever had this problem. not when I did the front brakes, not when the shop did the rear brakes, not any of the dozen times Walmart(!!!) rotated & balanced the last set of tires. I even popped the pads off the front Monday & looked at the calipers, lines & banjo for leaks or anything. cannot duplicate this feeling in the pedal. it has me stumped for sure.