Both Upper Ball Joints Toast On Gmt900

[AgDoctor]

So I take my 07 GMT 900 in for an anlignment this morning and the shop calls me and askes if it has been driving funny, and I said yes, thats why I brought it to you. He said that the upper control arms were about to drop the spindles off! Both upper ball joints are gone, and he said that it was bad! It isn't covered under GM's 100,000 mile warranty, and it is going to cost $514.00 for the line up, parts, and repair labor, which seems like a good deal. So I told him to fix it. I went to the dealer and they said that they havent seen anything like that in the shop and the alignment shop said the same thing. This is crap! On past GM models, and I have had alot, this never happened. I have had a 1990, a 1992, 1993, 1997, 2000, two 2004's, and now two 2007's. Only one of my 07's are screwed but this is ridiculous. I crunk the torsion bars on every other Chevy Z71 that I have owned and even turned up to the max the never ate a ball joint, although a few shocks blew. I have the RC 2 inch leveling kit on the truck but the dealer and the line up shop said that they have put on the same kit on alot of these trucks with no problems. This following the hub assembly that I put on 3 weeks ago! Is anyone else having ball joint issues on these? I have read about concerns on previous posts but not any confirmed replacements that I have seen. What gives? Is there no money in grease fittings and quality construction these days? I am tempted to get a 2500 with the old torsion bar setup and hopefully tougher balls! Just ranting but I feel like teabagging the engineer who put these worthless parts on a truck. I could understand this if it were a run of the mill street 2WD. This is the capable Z71 OFFROAD 4X4! Yeah right! If it were only one side I would think it was a coincidence, but both; this is too convenient. All of you who have read my other recent posts know that I USE my truck alot, but that's what a truck is, or was at some point.............

[AgDoctor]

By the way, when I say both upper ball joints, I literally mean driver and passenger side! BLAH!

[pm26]

I am curious what is the origin of these parts.

 

And you are right, the old torsion bar set up, like on my truck was a lot more forgiving when lifting the truck. It gives a slightly harsher ride, but is beefier.

 

The front suspension on my truck looks pretty substantial, at least the lower control arms and torsion bars are quite hefty. The new strut suspension on GMT 900s looks more like a passenger car set up.

[belchfire]

How many miles have you racked up on this beast?

[AgDoctor]

50,000 miles

[MS3DALE]

I've said before and I'll say it again....I do not like the fact that we cannot grease the ball joints in these 1/2-ton GMT900 trucks.

[C. Charles Hahn]

It's entirely possible that the factory got a bad batch of ball joints in and your truck happened to get faulty parts on both sides....

 

Of course with 50K on the truck including a lift kit you may not be doing too badly. I recall seeing posts about failures that happened as early as 20-30K miles.

 

 

I'm putting the new-style RC kit on my truck tomorrow; hopefully mine doesn't have any issues as a result.

[snarkee]

both upper fronts were changed on mine at 5000km

[Tsmith]

both upper fronts were changed on mine at 5000km

 

What was up with that being so soon?

 

On a side note the wife's 2002 Jeep Liberty has had the ball joints changed out twice due to factory recalls.

[bbb]

Seen a few come thru the shop with ball joints that are finished and were well within warranty

[snarkee]

i duno, they started to squeek and they both were shot

 

replaced under warranty and they didnt say anything about my 2in level kit

[rogerf]

On a side note the wife's 2002 Jeep Liberty has had the ball joints changed out twice due to factory recalls.

Join the club...my Liberty went through 2 sets with the "new & improved" 3rd set knocking when I got rid of it at 27K miles. Too bad DCX didn't use the Moog replacements with zerks...this part needs clean grease to push out the road salt.

 

Has anyone found a greasable replacement for the GMT900's?

[MS3DALE]

Has anyone found a greasable replacement for the GMT900's?

 

Not yet,But I'm sure someone will be out with them soon.

[Spurshot]

Moog's website has the complete upper control arm w/bushings and balljoint installed. I can't tell in the picture if the balljoint has a zerk. I couldn't find a separate upper balljoint or a lower balljoint or control arm assembly.

[bigdogxx]

I've said before and I'll say it again....I do not like the fact that we cannot grease the ball joints in these 1/2-ton GMT900 trucks.

 

I have said that since they put them on the colorado back in 04, they are bad enough when you can greese them every 3k, never mind not being able to.

 

Sorry to see you have problems, i know exactly how you feel previously owning a 89 s10 and a 95 zr2 s10. Between the two of them i think i went through about 11 sets of ball joints upper and lowers including the weak idler arm and pitman arm, hell i think i went through about 9 idlers alone on the zr2 in a 140,000 miles of use.