Help Needed!

[briggsy]

Hi all. Need a bit of friendly advice,my 98 explorer has just failed it's MOT.Suprisingly enough only on one thing.Front nearside lower balljoint has excessive play.Garage thinks that previous garage(rip offf merchants!) may have damaged it when they replaced hub last year.New garage have spoken to fords and have been quoted £79 for one balljoint(if they can get it!!).Garage seem to think this is a bit steep(i agree!).I read on a previous post that Rockauto.com are good,I've checked website but it lists 2 different models for 1998! how do i know which one is mine and how hard is it to change the balljoint(DIY or not?)Quite desperate as I'm supposed to be towing horse trailer this weekend and bank holiday.Any help greatly appreciated.

 

[Bulldog]

I had the same problem a couple of months ago and got 2 off of ebay for just over £50, I sugest to try ebay first.
Superfast delivery to
Hope this helps

 

[wetdog]

hi mate, welcome to the site.

mine cost me about 25/30 quid from ANDREW PAGE motor factors. fairly easy to replace. its just a ball joint.
if your a fairly competant d i y'er, you will already know how to change it.
mine was done by a local garage for about £35, if memory serves me right.

mick.

 

[snorky]

i had mine done a couple of months ago,i think it cost about £40 try c.e.s. in telford shropshire

 

[eskimo]

Hi Briggsy,

I had mine done earlier this year as they failed the MOT - Ford wanted £69.50 +vat for each side but could only give me an eta of between 5 and 10 working days as they had to get them from Germany.

Got on the internet and checked out Rock Auto and wasn't sure which ones to get, so I gave them a call and they were so helpful it was untrue. I explained about it being a UK spec etc and they identified the parts and said there was no problem shipping them out to the UK.

Normal shipping price was $25.00 usd for 6 working day delivery or they offered 1 - 3 working day for $31.50 usd!.

Ordered the 2 ball joints on the Tuesday at 3pm UK time, with the 1-3 day option total bill $83.50 usd.

Parts arrived on the Thursday at 9am UK time and the total bill on my credit card was £42.83.

Probably the best service for parts I think you could get and excellent customer service, Rock Auto will be my first port of call from now on.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Carl