ball joint inspection

[lowridin2g]

i know the chick who bought the car brand new before me, got the ball joint recall thing in the mail. she saved all the slips and she had a ball joint recall receipt in there. says as follows, ball joint recall completed, reseal only needed. now this was at 14,000 miles. i bought the car with 20,000 miles on it. and when i took it to a guy, a really shady guy,to get an allignment. he told me i needed a ball joint on the front pass. side. now when i told him oh there was a bj recall on these cars, i can get this fixed for free, he had nothing to say (keep in mind this is a guy who specializes in suspension, tryinf to get money out of a stupid kid like me) sorry but thats the attitude alot of mechs have. anyway i ignored him cause i just had a good feeling he was bullshitting, this guy is really shady. i know have 30,500 on my car and he told me this at 25,000. my question is how can i inspect the balljoint to see if i need a new one. i mean i thought that it would pull to one side, (the side your ball joint is bad on) or make noise over bumps and stuff. mine doesnt. any help would be highly appreciated. i mean i dont wanna ignore this and then be driving on the highway one day and have the damn thing snap. although if that happened i prob. wouldnt be around to make a mad face. im gonna go take a look in my chilton's manual right now, but i want some experienced dsm owners knowledge on this. sorry about the book. my fingers are cramped now, im done. thank u.

 

[Run-GSX]

Good ball-joint test:

Put the car in the air only a couple inches. using a long bar , or just your hands , try to pull the tire OUT by the bottom.
It shouldn't move at all.
If it does move.....bad ball-joint.

 

[lowridin2g]

ahhhh, i will try that come this friday, i got it off, hell yea. thanks man. any other suggestions? keep em coming.

 

[Run-GSX]

you have to pull OUT , tho.
If you pull up , then the suspension might move instead.

Either pull out , or push in.

The only other thing to do is disassemble the suspension.
The way I told you is the way shops usually test them.
But sometimes they do it wrong. =)

 

[lowridin2g]

when this guy tested mine, he was pushing back and forth on the left and right side of the wheel. ya know like side to side and i could not see any movement. i will try ur method come friday. that seems accurate anyway.

 

[Run-GSX]

Thats the way they test for bad tie-rod ends.......
He's either confused , or doesn't think you know any better.


Now you do =)

 

[lowridin2g]

i told u he was shady. tryin to get money outta me. and i knew better. thanks dude, you've been a big help. i appreciate that.

 

[CyberDSM]

Hey guys, sorry for bringing up an old post, but I suspect my car has a ball joint recall problem. I've called chrysler and they said the ball joint recall has been done, but they said the same thing about my T case and that needed to be done again. So to my question, Run-GSX, would that little test you explained there be able to tell me if I need that ball joint recall? Any symptoms I should look for when needing the ball joint recall? Any help is appreciated.