explorer ball joints

[ecourt]

I have a 98 explorer 4x4, sohc, 68k miles on it

It is basically a road truck, and is completly stock.

I took it in to have my firestones swapped out, and asked the shop to do a alignment while they were at it.

When I came back, they swapped the tires, and said they could not align it because the ball joints were bad. on both sides (lowers).

They also said they have seen almost all the explorers that have come in with over 50k miles on them have bad ball joints, and they have been doing about 3-5 of these ball joint replacements a day.

I took it home (didn't let them work on it, they wanted $350 to do lowers on both sides)and checked the ball joints, I jacked it up, and could feel no in/out movement from the bottom of the tire with my hand, so I put a 2X4 about 3 feet long under the tire, and had my brother push in on it. no pops, and I could not see the ball joint moving. (learned this trick from old mustang days)

I do have a sway bar bushing that is about gone, this does make a pop noise at slow speeds. when hitting a bump, or braking. Maybe they heard this, and assumed ball joint??

So, i basically have 2 questions....

Are these guys just trying to make a few extra bucks on the tire exchanges, or is there some validity to this?

Is there something I am missing in my ball joint testing? could they really be bad?

 

[MyExp]

My 91 (different front end suspension I think than yours), but I changed all of the ball joints at about 80k I think. Maybe a little more--100k. I dont exactly remember. It has 140k miles on it now.

Good Luck.

BC

 

[RangerX]

Take it somewhere else for a second opinion. Do you have a regular mechanic that you trust? Your joints may be bad, but that shop smells a little fishy. Try to get aligned soon, you don't want to wear down new tires.

 

[ecourt]

I dont have a regular mechanic, because I do 99% of all work on my truck, and cars myself. About the only thing I dont do is if I'm being lazy, I'll have pensoil chang the oil. (finishing a 1986 Mustang SVO restoration at the moment)

I'm taking it to another shop thrusday to have the alignment checked. I'll let you all know if they say the same thing.

My other opnion is that if explorers are trashing ball joints every 50k miles, there is a design problem!!!!!!!

 

[Dre]

most likely they were pulling your leg. Check it though to make sure.

I replaced mine after putting 100K miles on the odo and after doing some real wheeling.....

good luck!

 

[JoeC5]

I have 109k on my truck now and I still have the original ball joints on. Maybe its time to change them. Probably wont do it though. Ahh well

 

[Dre]

well, it was my mechanic who usually does alignment on my truck...... he suggested long time ago that we change ball joints but I hasitated...... lots of money..... finally had to do it since one of them was almost ready to come apart. get the greaseable ones though.

Lata

 

[ecourt]

Dre,
how many miles were on your explorer when you replaced them??

Oh.. never mind. I see it in the previous post. Sorry.

 

[Dre]

it was suggested I replace them at 80k miles...... now see how long I hasitated??? sometimes with these loose you're risking your life. definatelly not worth it but always get a second opinion. I'd say that 60% of the time mechanics are trying to make an extra buck or two on naive motorists.
mu opinion..........

 

[BUCHVILLEMAN]

DO IT YOURSELF

i changed mine out myself at 120,000 miles. I did the TT lift nad i think that strained them quite a bit. my paw in law and his brother both have chevrolets with greasable ball joints and they both have had to replace them before 70k. the ford place quoted me $400 but i went to discount auto and got the ball joints for $44 a joint and did all the work with the help of my paw inlaw. i took the whole front suspension off and used a bottle jack and an international tractor to push out the BJ (this is poor mans version of hydralic press.) at the same time i replaced the bushings under the torsion bars and greased the hell out of the suspension. It took about 4 hours to do both sides on a sunday drinking beer so im sure you guys could do th ejob quicker and more efficient than i did. but either way i saved myself some dough and i think that ford is trying to jack up some prices for something that doesnt require that much work.

 

[JT]

Same thing happened to me, i had brought my truck in for alignment, and the place said my lower joints were bad, they wanted 500 to fix it. I brought it to my normal mechanic, and he refferred me to a place that he subs out all his alignments to, and they checked em out and said they were fine. Some places try to take advantage of ya, thats for sure.

Get a second Opinion

 

[BKennedy]

I need to replace my right-lower ball joint (its getting loose), but the rest are fine after 127,000 miles. Some of those miles were even in the dirt.

You can do it yourself, its not that hard. If there is a AutoZone store in your area, they will sell you the puller/press tool. When you are done, you can take it back for a full refund. Its kind of there way of loaning tools. I have heard of people burning them out with a torch, then pressing them in with a bottle jack and a hammer, but it can't be good for the suspension.

Get quality replacements so you only have to do it once.

 

[tdavis]

Save yourself some trouble - don't just replace one, replace both when you have them done.

If you replace one, the other one feels bad, and dies with a few thousand miles.

 

[ecourt]

h

when I change them, I will change upper and lower, and on both sides.

The thing is, I'm not sure they need changing. I can't feel any play in them.

I had planned on taking it to another shop for a alignment, but haven't had the time yet.

I will post back when I do get a chance.

Thanks for all the info!

 

[BKennedy]

Now that I got to thinking about my worn right lower ball joint, its been bugging me so its time to replace all four. I found a shop in Oceanside, CA who will press out your old and replace with new TRW's for around $200.00, if you bring in just the steering knuckles. Since the ball joints are around $35-45.00 each, thats pretty good. See if someone in your area will do that kind of deal. Taking the entire front ends apart is not too complicated, just time consuming.