Looking for a bit of advice regarding comments from my annual service (video included)

[marduk]

Was just hoping someone that knows more about maintenance than me could chime in on a couple of things. Firstly, the video says that both front drop links are worn and need replacing. It's mentioned that a knocking noise could be heard when it was driven, but I can't hear anything like that when I drive it. Is it possible to tell from the video whether they really need replacing? 

The video also says that the osf ball joint boot has started to leak grease. Where would this leaking grease come from? Does this actually need to be replaced as they tried to charge me £300 to do it. Definitely a massively inflated price as the rear springs needed replacing and I've already arranged to have that done for £100 less than the Ford garage wanted to charge me. 

Final query, they recommended a brake fluid change due to the age of the car. Is this something that does need doing periodically, or only if I notice a decrease in performance?

Video link - https://vimeo.com/user100710042/review/347593706/38fe826c5d

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

[stef123]

Video isn’t working. 

The grease will be from the ball joint. Brake fluid is recommended to be changed every 2 years. 

[Guy Heaton]

Find a decent independent garage.  Drop links are a relatively easy job depending on access to get something in to stop the nut rotating.  I've done my own fronts in an hour on my old car.  They can wear out and knock and you can't always see the wear.  However it is worth checking that the drop link nuts are tight.

Drive shaft ball joint?  That can be 2 or 3 hours yes as there's more involved with getting it out of the hub.

I'm a fan of good independent garages, a good one will go that extra mile and charge you half the labour cost of a dealer.

 

[stef123]

3 hours ago, Guy Heaton said:

Find a decent independent garage.  Drop links are a relatively easy job depending on access to get something in to stop the nut rotating.  I've done my own fronts in an hour on my old car.  They can wear out and knock and you can't always see the wear.  However it is worth checking that the drop link nuts are tight.

Drive shaft ball joint?  That can be 2 or 3 hours yes as there's more involved with getting it out of the hub.

I'm a fan of good independent garages, a good one will go that extra mile and charge you half the labour cost of a dealer.

 

Takes long to jack the car up than it does to zip a drop link off with a grinder lol. Don’t undo the nut, tighten it until it shears, save the hassle lol. 

2 or 3 hours to change a ball joint? Glad I’m not paying you by the hour lol 

[marduk]

Thanks for the replies. Looks like I copied the wrong link for the video. This one should work. I can't just post the link without the video embedding automatically, so hopefully it will play.

 

 

 

[nicam49]

If its not too late.... you can actually buy a rubber boot to superglue over the old leaking (split) one.However you've still got to lower the subframe on that side and disconnect the joint to do it. It's an mot failure btw. I replaced the entire lower arm on mine, You can also buy a new ball joint assembly which you bolt on after grinding off the rivets of the old one, but it's still ideally remove the lower arm to do so due to access problems. If you can afford them, get OEM droplinks, and the proper flanged nuts. *They'll last another lifetime whereas aftermarket ones might look the same, but for some reason they don't last. *from yer Ford main dealer or look up the Ford part number (finis codes) yourself on www.catcar.info and then eBay search 'Ford + code' as you often get nos cheaper that way. 

Also the proper flanged nuts are twice as deep as the ones supplied with cheap droplinks and they won't come loose. You have to buy them seperately btw. 

I'd change brake fluid every 3 years myself, sure that's it on my mk3 Mondy. The fluid is hydro-something which means it absorbs moisture over time  so the water will tend to boil during heavy braking and degrade performance.