RE: Not again! Ball Joints....

From: Smith, Don W, SITS (donwsmith@att.com)
Date: Tue Oct 05 1999 - 07:02:04 EDT


My truck is Freehold Dodge for frontend work. I get a loud bang when turning
right and hitting a bump with the left front tire. To me it sounds like ball
joints but the dealership had ordered
tie rod ends and a center link. I will know within a week if it was
corrected and let everyone know.
Don

-----Original Message-----
From: GrnDak4x4@aol.com [mailto:GrnDak4x4@aol.com]
Sent: Monday, October 04, 1999 9:28 PM
To: dakota-truck@buffnet.net
Subject: Re: DML: Not again! Ball Joints....

In a message dated 10/4/99 5:37:01 PM Central Daylight Time,
CDaivs3872@aol.com writes:
<< Hi All. Anyone else have problems with upper or lower ball joints on 4x4
 Daks? My uppers and lowers were both replaced at 30K miles by the dodge
 dealer (that only took 5 trips and a heated discussion with their service
 manager to get that accomplished). Now I'm at 52K (out of warranty) and the

 lowers are gone again. I just took it to Kelley Autotire to get the tires
 R&Bed and have them check the alignment. Same as when I bought the tires at

 30k, it never made it to the rack. They found the wobbly joints while
 inspecting it. Is there a better ball joint than the ones Dodge is going to

 want to put back in it, and is there a chance in hell they will pay for
 replacing this set? I told the guy at Kelley about the DML and asking the
 group, and he said to expect a lot of replies. He said mine was the first
Dak
 to show bad joints, but they've seen a lot of them since then. I may be a
 little over paranoid about mine, but I had a ferd EXP (POS) separate a BJ
on
 me at about 70 mph one night. The resulting 180 was a bit traumatic and not

 something I want to repeat in my Dak. If there really are a ton of these
 things having problems and you don't want to flood the DML just send your
 replies straight to me. I wouldn't' t mind carrying a ream of printed posts

 about these things into the Dealer for my Wednesday afternoon inspection
 appointment (yeah never mind the fact that both I and the ASE certified
 mechanic at the tire store can confirm that the current BJs are junk, the
 dealer won't even order in a set until they see that they are bad with
there
 own eyes) If this keeps up I'm going to have to exit this list and just
show
 up to whip you in an F 350 Diesel Dually! ; ) (disclaimer: the preceding
 line of text was meant as a joke...don't take it personally)
>>
The only steering related component I have replaced is the idler arm, at
100,000 miles. Now my truck has 110,500 and the tie rods, both inner and
outer are still in good shape. The upper and lower ball joints are also in
good condition. They dont make em like them used to. Are the newer Dak's
ball
joints, upper and lower, greasable like mine are?????? Maybe this could be a

flaw if they are not.
Kyle
93 Dakota 4x4 V6



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