Sheared off lower ball joint

[Kenm4187]

Originally Posted by madmaxx

Not yet on the beverage, but I did check the driver side and found the same the ball joints had about the same amount of lubricant as a nun' s party box on Good Friday. Yea there was a couple of drops but not enough to brag about.

Regardless of the ball joints being lube or not they should NEVER,EVER FAIL. True the ball would wear to the point where the ball popped out of the socket/housing in about 50K miles but the stud should never ever break. So we have a real mystery hear. I did see USA stamped on mine which made me feel better than Made in China. It will be interesting to hear what the failure analysis finds.

Either way no excuse for SPF not greasing the ball joints. If they are diligent enough to mark every single nut, bolt with paint to show they were tightened then they must be miscommunicating with their supplier. SPF thinks the supplier is greasing and the supplier must think SPF is greasing.

My ball joint was lubed when it sheared off, only about 1420 miles on the car. I agree it should not have sheared off. I got the new ball joints installed today and used the old spindle (just to get it out of the trailer) until my new parts arrive. When I got it out of the trailer I found even more damage. When the wheel came off it hit the side pipe and pushed it back. The pipe is in about 2" by the rear tire. It looks like the exhaust manifold may be bent also, I can see an impact point in the heat shield behind it, very hard to tell. It just keeps getting better. Looks ok at the head.

Kenm2560