ball joints need replacing

[itsrelfy]

Hi all.

 

Ford have just rung me as they have my car for service today and they are saying I need new ball joints at the front on both sides as well as brake pads and discs. The total cost is around £800. i'm reluctant to pay this as the car is 5 years old and also a friend of mine is a mechanic who can do the work. but I've been looking online for ball joints and what comes up is a bit bewildering. So I can buy just a ball joint for about 30 quid or a whole arm for about 100 quid. I haven't looked into ford pricing yet. What i plan to do is when i get the car ask them to write the part codes for what i need on the report.

 

but 800 quid just seems like too much money. Am i right or wrong???

 

 

 

 

[hodge2k14]

Your friend could do it a lot cheaper than that I'd be surprised if it came for £100 - £200 in parts tbh

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[dezwez]

far to much get your mate to do it 

[itsrelfy]

thats what i thought. i've got the breakdown here. They want £142 for the discs, £135 for pads, £253 for offside ball joint and £248 for nearside. That makes £778 so not quite £800. Its just amazing what they charge.

[isetta]

when was it last MOTd. if they were that bad it would not get a MOT. Often service places judge the parts by the standards of a new car. they might say it needs new discs when the degree of scoring is slight. Did they tell you how many mm left on the pads? (MOT standard is 1.5mm) . Ball joints are a bit different. If there really is play then I think they ought to be replaced.  It's hard to say without inspecting it myself.

[itsrelfy]

erm last mot was may last year and it got a clean bill of health. It had a service at the same time and nothing was said about the ball joints or the discs. the pads were 65% worn at that time. I assume they are the original pads as i bought the car with 9000 miles at 2 years old back in 2014 and i've never had them changed. its now got 56000 on it. I think the pads had 2.6 mm left. I kind of knew they were coming up to needing doing though so those i'm not too concerned about

[isetta]

it may be that the pads do need doing, some places will say you should do the discs at the same time, particularly if any scoring on them. new pads will bed into new discs quicker than new pads on old discs, as it will take no longer for the surface of the new pads to wear to match any grooves in the old discs. But I still feel that a lot of discs are getting changed unnecessarily. We have a 2007 Fiesta in our family which has just over 150k miles on. 3rd set of disc pads, still on original discs, the discs are acceptable standard and have never been mentioned on an MOT test.

[itsrelfy]

This is the report  sorry its side on  3-4mm left on pads. 

 

If if I take a wheel off would I be able onsee for my self the state of the ball joints? Or do you need to be underneath? 

[v530anh]

303 is pretty good boiling point considering brake fluid has not been changed!

Why bother with this? It may have already been changed.

[itsrelfy]

I'm certain the brake fluid has been changed in the last service that they did or at least the one before. 

I've looked after the car as best I can as I am keeping it probably until it becomes uneconomical to throw money at  

the air con degas was done in the last service or 2 as well however ford say they can find no record of either this or the brake fluid being done despite that garage being the only one to ever service the car since I've owned it  

does anyone know how easy it is just to change the ball joint rather than the whole arm?

 

 

[isetta]

if i am reading it correctly they are not saying there is play in the ball joints, they are saying there is a split in the rubber protective boot/gaiter. that means dirt etc is more likely to get into the ball joint which may speed up the wear of it so that play appears sooner than  it would have done.

 

[itsrelfy]

Yes they are split. I've had the wheels off today and had a look. To be honest, to me they don't look that bad at this moment in time. There is a split both sides. Quite small currently. 

Just spoke to haynes ford in Maidstone and they can do both wishbones for £228 quid if I buy them together which would save me about 40 quid. 

However ive found replacement ball joints by either moog or Delphi for about 30 quid all in. So 228 still seems excessive. The rest of the arm on both sides look fine. There are no knocks clunks rattles or anything coming from the front so in my mind the ball joints although probably a bit more fiddly seems the way to go. 

What does anyone else think? 

[isetta]

it sounds to me like you only need to replace the rubber boot/gaiter. I have no idea if these can be bought separately. obviously some dismantling is needed just to fit the boot.

[stef123]

44 minutes ago, isetta said:

it sounds to me like you only need to replace the rubber boot/gaiter. I have no idea if these can be bought separately. obviously some dismantling is needed just to fit the boot.

Have you ever tried just replacing the rubber gaiter.. It's usually a nightmare! Lol.