Blown Boot

[penguins1]

Hi All,

 

Pulling into the garage tonight I found this treat on the garage floor:

 

 

After some investigation, I found this:

 

 

It looks like I have blown my upper ball joint boot. Does that sound right?

 

Should I still drive my truck with this condition? I have to bring my wife's 2003 Malibu into the shop again and was hoping she could drive the truck to work this week! Any opinions?

 

What should it cost to repair something like this?

 

Thanks!

[DJinCO]

Beats me if it'll hurt or not but mine are the same. Except the grease is not that dark. I lube mine every 3000 miles or so, gushes out the old stuff. Still seems tight and no noises from the front end.

 

Anxious to see other replies. But I don't worry about it. I'd recommend regular lubes although!

 

Cheers, Doug

[ChevyWolf]

Both my upper ball joint rubbers poped on mine

[gnutruk]

That is not good, but the fix is very expensive. Not something that most home mechanics can do. You have to disassemble the front suspension in order to replace the boots. There was some discussion here awhile ago about this. Jayman had some comments, if I recall correctly, so you might do a search for that.

 

Like DJinCO suggests, lube frequently from now on and you ought to get many more miles out of those ball joints. Since the boots are blown, you will probably be getting more water and general road gunk in there, so you might consider switching over to the most water-proof grease you can find - one of the marine-grade greases. Just make sure it meets the GL-5 rating, or whatever lube grease rating your owners manual calls for.

 

gnutruk

[silverado4800]

Got one busted on mine, i agree with the others, i just lube it fairly frequently to keep any crap out of it, its been that way for probably 20,000 miles and no trouble. I do plan on fixing it sometime though.

[zshumo]

Same w/ mine & on the right side also. Go figure, $35,000 truck and a $0.15 boot gives you the headache I think mine is under waranty though. Are there any aftermarket boots that will hold up better???

[97whitez71]

Just had a good front end job done on my truck. The shop said that even though some boots were busted, the joints were still tight. He said that if I wanted him to, he would replace them but as long as I grease them every oil change they will be fine. I wouldn't worry about them untile you notice slack and play in them.