Another 2002 Explorer story:

Took the car in for its regular servicing, yesterday.

It has a little over 40,000 miles on it.

Service manager comes in and says the upper ball joints need replacing. UPPER!!!!

I have been driving for over 50 years in many different cars - most getting to over 100,000 miles on them and never had to replace upper ball joints. On one or two cars I had the lowers done.

I don't drive "off road" and even try to avoid rough highways.

Does this make sense to anyone?

WLW

Reply to
wlwallick
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Did you ask why or did they show you why they needed to be replaced? Torn boots perhaps? This would not be an inexpensive job as the upper control arms will likely have to be replaced. I would think it would be worth it to find out what was wrong with them before replacing.

Reply to
Captain Coleman

There is a factory service spec on ball joint clearances.... If there is any doubt, I have no problem printing off the appropriate pages in the manual and showing the customer the procedure and the spec....

FWIW, I have earned the trust of my customers and rarely have to resort to showing the spec and method to a doubting Thomas.

Your upper ball joint is known as a "guiding" joint.... it has a lower allowable tolerance than the lower ball joint.

Reply to
Jim Warman

He did say the seals were bad - that things would get worse and tear up the tires.

Frankly I was in a "state of shock" and only heard "ball joint" and assumed he was talking about the lower ones. Later I looked at the print out and realized it was the uppers.

Thankfully we did get the extended warrantee with a $50.00 deductable

- with about 12 more months on it.

I am really wondering how many other things are going to go "bad" in the near future!?

Especially after the warrantee runs out?

WLW

Reply to
wlwallick

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