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Scuba Steve
Dodge Dakota
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9/25/2003
21:32:06
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 Subject: worn ball Joint?
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I have been reading about the problems with the ball joints and I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to inspect them? I'm getting worried about driving my truck if the suspension is going to fall off. I just bought the truck used and it has 32000 miles on it.
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S. Avant
Dodge Dakota
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10/16/2003
12:26:26
|  RE: worn ball Joint?
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My 2000 Durango has just recently had the lower ball joint replaced on the passenger side. For about the last 20000 miles, it sounded like an old chuck wagon. Sqeaking and rattling, I was embaressed to pull into a drive-thru window.If you are having this problem, have it checked out immediatly!
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dakotaSuXT
Dodge Dakota
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10/16/2003
15:31:30
|  RE: worn ball Joint?
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Just wondering if any of you have tried to see what the dealerships say about ball joints and warranty? I have an occasional clunker and Im really close to the supposed "bumber to bumber" warranty.My dealership has been really crappy in the past,wasting my time and doing nothing....
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Robert
Dodge Dakota
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10/17/2003
10:59:28
| RE: worn ball Joint?
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Just ordered a new Moog upper ball joint for my 02 Sxt. Sounds like a clunk when going over bumps. To check, jack up the front under the lower control arm, grab the wheel at the top and jerk it in and out. You can feel the play and see the motion in the worn joint.
Dealer denied service on my 36,500 mile truck. Will order a set of Edelbrock or Bilstein shocks next, the stockers are borderline dangerouse.
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Chad
Dodge Dakota
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10/18/2003
20:29:34
| RE: worn ball Joint?
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Hello,
I have a 01 quad cab with both lower ball joints bad. I can not find them anywhere but the dealer. Where are you getting the Moogs from? Is the 01 different from the 98 on?
Thanks Chad
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Scuba Steve
Dodge Dakota
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10/20/2003
11:24:52
| RE: worn ball Joint?
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Hey Robert thanks for the reply I will try that. Also where are you ordering your ball joints at and how much do they run?
Why do you say the stock shocks are borderline dangerous? just curious
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robert
Dodge Dakota
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10/26/2003
08:06:56
| RE: worn ball Joint?
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Well, I ordered the ball joint from Summit Racing. They have moved the delivery date twice, now its November 9th. Clunk is getting worse. Guess Moog cant make 'em fast enough.
I think the shocks really suck because of the way the truck bump-steers. Also, I had to moderately brake toward a red light with a light load and the front end dived and the back end hopped to a stop. Maybe the warped brake rotors did not help either.
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slopehead
Dodge Dakota
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11/01/2003
08:42:31
| RE: worn ball Joint?
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Robert good way to check for bad ball joints, it is probably best that you had have the joints replaced with Moog or TRW as they are far better then the junk the dealer will put on as he will only replace them with the same thing you already got on there. I just had TRW lowers put on mine for a lot less then the dealer wanted for one side.
Scuba Steve, If you are from the Toledo area, I think you might be due to your name and the fact that a car audio place around here uses that name in its advertising, Try Belle Tire on Navarre avenue, I got mine done for right around 300 for both lowers and an alignment just this past week. Brock will take good care of you!
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scuba steve
Dodge Dakota
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11/01/2003
16:23:21
| RE: worn ball Joint?
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Hey slopehead actually I am in Georgia.
Funny thing happened last week I read the news article from CBS news about the ball joints and decided to check them to see if they were wore out and guess what... I did.
One of my uppers had about a half inch of play when I shock the top of the tire. Oh yea and I had 36,400 miles on my truck. So the next morning I was off to the dealer and to my great supprise they said no problem we will fix it under warrenty. I did not even have to argue with them or anything. They are going to put a TRW ball joint on. But they said the parts were on on back order (go figure) so it would be about a week.
2001 Dodge Dakota Quad 2wd
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Kaitlyn
Dodge Dakota
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11/13/2003
23:54:49
| RE: worn ball Joint?
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Just had my ball joints replaced at the dealership i work at. i own a dakota but i work at a GM dealership. they replaced the ball joints but the only problem is, once the grease runs dry, i'm pretty well looking at replacing them once again, on top of that they didn't do a very good job, so anyway they were replaced this time at 91000k's. anyone have any idea how much longer it will be until they need replaced again? \
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nwf_snake
Dodge Dakota
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11/14/2003
07:31:41
| RE: worn ball Joint?
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Both Moog and NAPA ball joints are greaseable. Next time replace it with one of those for lifetime use!
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slopehead
Dodge Dakota
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11/15/2003
07:20:27
| RE: worn ball Joint?
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my all new TRW's are greasable, the NAPA site says the ball joints the have for late model Dakota's are not greasable. TRW also has a lifetime warrenty on them.
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thajackster
Dodge Dakota
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11/15/2003
08:15:39
| RE: worn ball Joint?
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I have a 98 clubcab with a whomping 191K miles on it, I've replaced the left front hub assembly due to bearing failure a year ago, and just this last week all four ball joints with the "MOOG" "Problem Solver Ball Joints" which include grease zerks and lifetime warranty and are bigger in mass than the stockers. This was the first set of replacement ball joints ever for this truck and my original ones lacked the grease zerks as well, funny thing is in the owners manual, Dodge recommends greasing the ball joints every 30K go figure. Found the replacements calling Southern Auto Parts @ around $225 for all four. What fun knocking those fourteen rivets out of the control arms. before I get it aligned, I'm replacing the upper/lower control arm bushings which appear to be another weak link.
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JES
Dodge Dakota
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11/17/2003
14:00:54
| RE: worn ball Joint?
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Let's see ... from the messages above ...
" ... grab the wheel at the top and jerk it in and out."
"One of my uppers had about a half inch of play when I shock the top of the tire."
That's what I thought too .. that's the way it was on all my other trucks. BUT .... my dealer -- Krebs Dodge - Rt 8 - Gibsonia, PA, assures me that this is not the correct way to check the balljoints .... Dodge's method must be adhered to ... in short ..
Jack up vehicle on outermost lower control arms with "floating" jacks under each side ... take front wheels off .... put dial indicator between upper control arm and ball joint base (for uppers) ... put pry bar in upper control arm ... push down .. zero dial indicator ... push up on pry bar ... read indicator ... if less than 0.060", then joint is fine ..... radial play doesn't need to be checked because the axial play would occur first ...
Lo and behold, after their DODGE check, my balljoints are considered to be in perfect working order, yet I have 1/4" of play at the top and bottom of the tire when I jack it up and push/pull on the top/bottom of the tire. Why? Dealer says this is just the bushings and torsion bar suspension flexing.
I have a BS in Mechanical Engineering w/ 18+ credits in Vehicle Dynamics and over two decades of experience under various vehicles ... this procedure is complete BULL!!!!!!! I'm sick of conversing about the finer points of vehicel behavior with dealerships. I left the dealership with my wobbly wheel ... called Dodge Customer Service (for the fifth time for various reasons) ... they said they would "look into it" .... AGAIN!!!!!!
Another satisfied DAK owner ...
Eric -- http://photos.yahoo.com/jes_96
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hey JES
Dodge Dakota
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11/17/2003
17:20:52
| RE: worn ball Joint?
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just do like the rest of us without engineering degrees do and re-engineer the front end with aftermarket parts that are better then what the factory uses.
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JES
Dodge Dakota
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11/17/2003
20:39:31
| RE: worn ball Joint?
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What makes you think the aftermarket joints are any better than the factory ones? The grease fitting? Well, if there's grease in my factory joint, and it's sealed (and not ripped or leaking), then there's no comparison there. They're both the same size .. no camporison there. I will give you that the aftermarket joints are probably made out of better materials, since these parts are the bread and butter of the companies manufacturing them, hence, they will last longer. BUT .. they're still undersized, so even the best of the best materials will probably fail in an unreasonable amount of time (reasonable being my previous truck that had 33" tires, was abused by both the previous owner and myself -- that was it's intended purpose -- and had ball joints that lasted 145,000 miles!!!!! .... from a measly Ranger that I bought in 95 for $13,500 -- less than half the price of my DAK)
So, I'll just put my engineering degree back in my sock drawer and stew over the fact that I have a "$31,000 truck" that needs a good portion of the factory parts replaced after 27,000 miles -- rotors, pads, ball joints, et cetera .... great .. thanks for the advice. :oP
Eric
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Ben
Dodge Dakota
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12/07/2003
09:26:14
|  RE: worn ball Joint?
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Sooo. After all that. Does the bumper to bumper truly cover worn ball-joints? Mine is a 98, Sport, 4X4, with 33,000 miles.
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NO
Dodge Dakota
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12/07/2003
14:08:30
| RE: worn ball Joint?
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At least thats what they told me when I bought my 03.
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scuba_steve
Dodge Dakota
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12/07/2003
15:43:48
|  RE: worn ball Joint?
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The dealer replaced my ball joints and i had 36400 miles on the truck and I did not even had to argue with them. I did have to wait 2 weeks because the joints were on backorder (I wonder why).
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JES
Dodge Dakota
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12/09/2003
10:51:23
| RE: worn ball Joint?
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Finally had my driver's side upper balljoint replaced. Took a call to corporate. The balljoint replacement is covered under the 3 year/36,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty, but not the 7 year/70,000 mile powertrain warranty. The balljoint is considered 'bad' when it has 0.062" (about 1/16th inch) of play, but the dealers only check the axial play, not the radial play (radial, as in jack the truck up and push/pull on the top of the wheel), so it's probably a good idea to check them yourself.
Eric -- http://photos.yahoo.com/jes_96
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Robert
Dodge Dakota
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12/12/2003
08:26:53
| RE: worn ball Joint?
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Just read your message JES. I did suggest "jerk it in and out". I think by reading your posts you may agree with me. The simple answer is with play like that you now have a variable camber front end. You know, as well as I, when you develop slop in parts like this they usually beat themselves to death.
My 97 F-150 4x4 has all kinds of slop in just about every part in the front end, except the upper ball joints and pitman arm. Guess what, Ford says its all in spec when they aligned the front end. And... replaced the idler arm and lower joints and the truck actually does not have wander steer in sweeping corners and drift while trying to hold center steer. The thing is, the Moog joints and arm have no play.
Obviously, things have changed in the last 20 years or so. I would always change parts that failed the big Channel Lock compression test. And replace lower joints with verticle slop. Ford dealer showed me a Lightning with 17k miles and the lower ball joints had 1/4" vertical slop, and that was within spec!
Another thing, most people check front end parts by supporting the front end under the lower control arms and "steering" the front end with one tire while observing for sloppy parts. How in the world do you mimic front end stresses in this manner? The loading in realistic driving in much, much more.
I have an 02 SXT and awaiting Moog to manufacture the upper ball joints. Has been delayed but are expecting any day now. Moog actually tries to manuracture parts that address factory weakness.
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