Took the truck in for an oil change today. When I picked it up they said I needed new upper and lower ball joints. One word, EXPENSIVE!! I need to replace the shocks too, so I figure now is a good time to do it while it is going to be apart. Everything is being blamed on the 2.0 autospring according to the tech you did the oil change. They said I needed to get the correct upper control arms to run the spacer setup. I sure love it, when they think they know what they are talking about.

Hopefully will be fixed soon, truck has 57,000 miles on it. I was hoping to not spend so much money on it since I may be getting rid of it. Looks like I will be keeping it a little while longer now. I take such good care of my truck, and things like this always happen.

Anyways, just venting. Seems like everyone wants to take my money.

jrbhc8

 

Correct upper controls arms? Wtf is that lol. Theres not different ones for leveling kits?

 

another retard with a fancy piece of paper that has no idea what the hell he is talking about. i was at the dealer a while back and the guy behind the counter told a customer to crank up his torsion bars on his 07 fx4 so his truck wouldn't sag so bad with his plow, i was like what year is it? and just laughed.

changing out bj's and shocks is pretty easy, few hour job at the most, i would take the shocks in though, they are a mother unless you got one hell of a spring compressor

 

The stock springs aren't bad. I was able to compress them with a cheesy cheap spring compressor from Autozone.

 

actually i have seen somewhere on this forum that if the spacer is too much the ball joints will wear quicker due to the angle the spacer puts them in.but if you have worn parts they still need to be changed.lift kits do it too.

 

I take it you are lifted to have failure of your ball joints at such a low mileage...

 

a leveling spacer may have an effect on the ball joint


a bigger factor however is the road you drive on. If you're area has good roads, that ball joint can last forever...places like Arkansas and Luisiana...not so much.



it's easy to automatically blame the leveling kit...but there is a very good chance it isn't the major culprit. I'd say it helped, but wasn't the final blow


sorry about the problems. hope it isn't that bad $$$ wise

 

Motorcraft balljoints are a POS!! After 25 to 30,000 miles my lower bjs were crap and were the main cause of my tires being thrown out of balance all the time and thereby giving me the infamous steering wheel nibble at 50 to 65 mph (and that was before I put a 2.5" leveling kit on). Replaced them with some moogs for $37.50 a piece, got the tires rebalanced, and I've never looked back, problem solved. And that was 100,000 miles ago. The dealership is full of **it!! When my tires hit 135,000 miles, I'm going to replace them with a larger size, and do my upper bjs at the same time, and I know that will be a little more $$$ since the uppers are part of the upper control arms. As far as shocks go, don't give them your money, the back ones are a breeze to do. If anything, I'd find a muffler/shock place and let them do the front ones if you don't have access to a spring compressor and impact gun.

 

Worn ball joints don't "throw tires out of balance."

 

I won't argue with you on that Quintin, you certainly would know better than I would. I'm just merely stating what happened to me, and I have an ase certified buddy who found what was causing my issues. The balljoints were trash as I said before, and the tires were always getting out of balance. Once we replaced the bjs and rebalanced the tires (for about the 4th or 5th time, I lost count) everything has been fine, no nibble, tires are still balanced and balljoints are good and all while driving the same roads that I always have. As far as I'm concerned, he's right about the whole balljoint/tire issue, no offense. It certainly fixed my problems.

 

You need ball joints unless you drive offroad 24/7 and it may just need to be aligned because of the spacer.

 

yeah that's the silliest thing i ever heard, worn parts make the wheel act likes the tires isn't balanced, when in fact it's the bj simulating the tire as the culprit for the wobble.

i know when i needed to buy a new upper arm, the moog was almost double the price of a ford one, napa was baffled by the extremely hard price. unsure why?

 

Well, all I know is it's fixed and has been for 100,000 miles, so explain that one. And I'm surprised to hear that the Moog upper control arms are more expensive. I thought the Moog lower bjs were cheap enough and they certainly last longer. Then again Napa auto has to have the highest prices on the planet!

 

57000 miles is not bad at all for the crappy oem ball joints.

 

Pulling the springs is quite simple with a spring compressor.