Moog ball joints -lower driver side doesn't have grease fitting

My Nissan doesn't hae a grease fitting anywhere and hasn't needed it in

Both lower ball joints are the same part number. Make him install another in the drivers side.

My 75 F-100 had over 300,000 miles on it when the engine was rebuilt. AFAIK, it's still on the road.

The '81 Nissan I had was junked in '93. It rusted clear through in many places, and I lived in a state that didn't use salt on the roads. Should mention that truck had a habit of blowing head gaskets every 30K or so.

Plasyd

Moog doesn't make anything that I know of. They buy from various manufacturers all over the world. Popular part numbers, they spec the item closely. Less popular ones they order from the OE supplier or another manufacturer that makes OE duplicates, many (most?) of which do not have fittings. Also, when they change over competing products they rebox the part into a Moog box. Bottom Line: It's a crapshoot what you will find in the box.

The installer should know to check and compare before installing. He probably installed that one last, almost certainly noted it did not have a zerk, but by then he wasn't going to do the extra labor for one grease fitting. Sloppy on his part, but he may have called the supplier for another joint and they did not have one in stock. You will have a hard time getting him to change it out. In reality, the lack of a grease fitting probably won't affect the service life of the vehicle while you own it.

Good luck

|| || I just had upper and lower (Moog) ball joints installed on my ||1999 Econoline E350. || The lower ball joint, driver's side, does not have a grease fitting. || The upper driver's side has one, and, the passenger side has ||grease fittings on the upper, and lower. || When I asked the mechanic about this, he said the Auto parts supplier ||said they were all like this. || Any thoughts on this? || Thanks. || LJ || || ||

Rex in Fort Worth

MOOG makes all their parts!

They only buy items that other companies have a patent on.

As for the one ball joing that has no grease fitting. Moog, as all other suspension parts companies, has a price competetive line. They must have had one real MOOG in stock, and one price competive (White Box) on the shelf

Hence, no grease fitting. If the shop charged the customer for two moogs, he defrauded the customer.

The two OEM suppliers for GM, Ford and Chrysler are Moog and Dana, (Dana being also: Perfect Circle and NAPA, Dana corp owns NAPA)

Moog was the first company to make the offset upper control arm shaft for the GM and Fords, to compensate for the crossmember sag. Which lead to no more adjustment for posative camber, and the inside tire wear problem of the

Refinish King

Thanks for the replies. I have found out that there are two companies that use the name Moog. One does mostly aerospace parts, and the other is Federal Mogul, the auto parts supplier. Federal Mogul does not have an email listed on their web page. I will call them tomorrow to see what they have to say. I doubt the mechanic will replace the ball joint, and then have the wheel alignment done again, however, I'll ask. It'll bother the living sh#t out of me to only be able to grease 3 out of the 4 ball joints. I'm wondering if I can drill a hole and install a grease fitting without damaging the ball joint. LJ

If he charged you the same price for both lowers:

He's better redo it, because that's fraud. Call the Attorney General's office, because he charged you for two premium ball joints, and installed one premium and one generic.

Refinish King

Sounds very much like a lie. If I was going to lie, that's exactly what I would make up. You didn't specify whether the lower left has a hole where the grease fitting is missing (I assume no-that would be stupid). If not, then what happened is the ball joints came from a store or supplier that changed a subcontractor's subcontractor and you caught two, during the change, that are different. Probably made by different companies.

You can get two different parts from the same store using the same part number. My parts guy says when the parent company changes suppliers, they relable certain parts in stock, particularly when one supplier or chain buys out another. Ball joints would be a likely victim, because you can't really tell what brand they are. So they might have a Borg Warner ball joint that, in their computer, and according to the label, is a moog ball joint. Hope that helps.

||MOOG makes all their parts!

I've sold Moog for 10 years, and sold competing lines for 20 years before that. I'm also a FM stockholder. Walk down the shelves of a Moog warehouse and note all the countries of origin listed on the shelves. They don't own all those factories. That's not to say Moog is not good stuff - it is usually at least as good as OE, often better. Believe what you like, then let's work a deal on some property in Florida I think you might be interested in. It adjoins a tract owned by the Tooth Fairy :)

Rex in Fort Worth

What kind of warranty did the installer give you? If it it lifetime parts & labor, except for the alignment, what's the problem? The part is only as good as it's warranty. Drive the wheels off of it and happy motoring.