I had the lower ball joints replaced a couple years ago. Only about 5k has been put on the car since then and upon looking for a noise yesterday i notice that the passanger side is torn just like it was before and the drivers side isnt to much better. I have faith in the person who helped me install it:grin: But im curious if theres some other reason this could happen so quickly.

 

Ben

are you sure its the ball joint, and not the tie rod end joint?

IM no ase certified mechanic but all i know is the parts me and mick replaced a few years ago is riped on the driverside and i can see metal on the passanger side, so yea pretty sure the tie rod isnt the total problem right now.

what parts did you use? i went to buy ball joints the other day and they had one brand (can't recall but it said it was OEM spec) and MOOG which was a good bit more in price. i asked to see both and the MOOG was noticeably nicer quality.

 

everything about it looked better, the metal on the bottom looked new, not reused or poorly cast (smooth, no divots, etc), the rubber looked better, and the most obvious difference was the circlips holding the boot in place. the MOOG was nice, tight, and looked very professional. the cheaper one looked sloppy.

 

maybe you just had some cheap ball joints or got a bad batch?

these are a booger to replace on midwest cars, that pinch bolt is well, stubborn.

 

start blasting it with PB blaster NOW. and every day for a few weeks. you could get the car on craigs mick found, but it is actually missing the ball joint so thats a no go.

these are a booger to replace on midwest cars, that pinch bolt is well, stubborn.

 

start blasting it with PB blaster NOW. and every day for a few weeks. you could get the car on craigs mick found, but it is actually missing the ball joint so thats a no go.

 

+1............and on northeast cars too. Getting the passenger side balljoint out may have been THE most difficult thing I had to do across all the work I did on my Brat. Finally I gave up and let the alignment shop guys get it out. They said it was one of the hardest ones they ever had!

Moog for replacements though!

focus people. the question is about what could cause the early failure...

 

replacing them won't be an issue, since they were just replaced recently.....

early failure. manufacturing flaw perhaps, possible sign the bearings are shot, bad struts, bad tires, bad alignment combination of any/all of these etc.....too many potholes in the road, etc.

 

this is not a good thing though if they were new. I put new ones on my Brat, so i hope they last a lot longer, but i better go check. got mine from the place we all rockauto.

 

even though they have been replaced recently, if antiseize was used i would say they will remove okay, but never know with one iowa winter, they could be rusted in no time. Poor Guido.

fix him

focus people. the question is about what could cause the early failure...

 

replacing them won't be an issue, since they were just replaced recently.....

 

 

unless some mud got wedged up into certain areas.

 

I have complete faith in my subaru service mickual:) that i can remove these and replace if necessary. My problem is i dont want to do these every couple of years. Tires are ok, wheelbearings have been checked and are ok, struts are probally bad and i know the alignment is off. But still were talking about a car that does about 5k a year. I dont remember what brand the ones we put on were but i know they werent moog.

chinese rubber is crappy, they dont have a good vulcanising tecnology yet,thats why they have so many people there , fauty rubber

I dont remember what brand the ones we put on were but i know they werent moog.

 

i'd just replace with MOOG or Subaru next time, I bet you got a bad one or it was poor quality like I was saying I could see visually. Usually if the small things are bad, the overall quality leaves something to be desired.

+1 for MOOG, they are worth the extra money.

I just picked up two ball joints from Autozone... same part number FA1269 (for 83 DL) and they look totally different. One is about 1 cm shorter than the other. The longer one doesn't have a Moog label, but it has a detached separate boot and an extra bolt with it. Can someone please explain?

 

Moog K9081 comes with these separate parts. What is the bolt for? And why do I not want a boot that is already securely fastened to the hardware?

Think this has swayed me towards moog ball joint instead of the 10 dollar no name ones I was eying on ebay..

I went through this with Evay ball jopints, they failed after a few years and were rusted solid, and i am not in a rustbelt area.

 

I replaced them with Moog parts. Aparently no brand is poor metal quality so fail quickly.