Ball Joints

[Badbird2000]

Ball joints. Front of my trucks makes occasional chunks from the front wheels when I go over bumps, cracks, etc. 2012 Silverado Z71, 163,000 miles. How bad are they to replace? I am decent at basic stuff, brakes, oil changes, etc but limited on tools and even more limited on patience. Anyone know average price to have a shop do them? Is there one on the upper and one on lower?

 

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[rjgti]

upper and lower, easy to do

[CamGTP]

Inspect the lowers before you replace them, same with the uppers.

 

You can use a pry bar to see if the lowers have play, they do not go bad as often as the uppers.

 

The upper balll joints fail all the time, if you jack up the front of the truck, just push in at the 12 o'clock position on the tire. If it moves in and out at all, the upper ball joint is bad.

 

Just replace the entire upper arm assembly, it's faster and easier. Just mark the camber shims/plates for re-install to get you close before the alignment.

 

Also check your sway bar links and bushings, those will clunk/make noise if bad.

 

You can youtube most of this stuff to get a better grasp on it. It's not that hard to do except for the lower ball joints. You'll need a ball joint press if you did it yourself. Shops would charge probably 1 to 1.5 hours a labor per side for the uppers and even more for the lowers.

[Badbird2000]

Great info! Thanks! I have a buddy that is a service tech at the dealer. I trust him when I do have stuff done.

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[William Christopher Speight]

youtube bro...its got everything...or 1aauto the often have remove and replace videos attached to the part you are trying to buy

[tlaw91]

You need struts most likely with the upper control arms. The struts make a heck of a racket when they go bad, ball joints just ‘click’ You literally can’t replace the upper ball joints without the control arms they aren’t serviceable.


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[Badbird2000]

So when my buddy put the tires on he checked everything out. Two broken sway bar end links were the culprit. Ball joints are still good. But I'm going to go ahead and start ordering the complete upper and lower control arms with the ball joints pressed in. Truck has 163,00 miles so it's just a matter of time. Rockauto to the rescue.

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