Last night when making a turn the whole front bar and wheel literally came off the car. It was almost under the body of the car. Had to push the car out of the middle of the road, and doing that caused part of the tire and rim to grind away on the road. So 1/4 of the tire is literally gone. Knew the ball joints and bearings were bad just never got them fixed and this is what it lead to. Is this a possible fix?
Just by making that statement, you were inviting a failure.
Tester
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There is almost always a fix, it just depends on if you consider the cost worth it. I would think $2000 would be a good max ballpark,
Sure it is. All that you have to pay for is suspension parts and labor-new tire and wheel and the procrastination fee for not fixing the ball joints and bearings when you should have.
Is WHAT a possible fix?
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I think you mean is it possible to fix this problem. Yes. You’ll probably need a replacement tire and possibly a replacement wheel. Depending on what’s broken and how your Jeep’s front end is configured you may need to replace
- control arm(s)
- ball joints (possibly lower and upper)
- tie rod ends
- strut/spring/shock
- front axle
- hopefully the hub/steering knuckle wasn’t damaged
After that you’ll need a front end alignment. It sounds like a lot of stuff, but don’t throw in the towel. Find a good shop to have a look-see, it looks pretty bad, but in actually not be that much may need to be replaced.
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And be thankful you didn’t need an ambulance or hearse, and didn’t involve anyone else. If you knew about the problems and drove anyway, it would be criminally negligent homicide if someone died.
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You are VERY lucky no one got killed. Hope you learn from this.
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was wondering how an axle would fall off. i think your axle is still in place. looks like a broken ball joint too me. i have to remove my axle to change my axle boot.
The flip side of this is that you should be thanking your lucky stars that you and others are not injured or deceased due to a rollover or collision with another vehicle.
Yes it can be fixed and it will not be cheap. It would have been a lot cheaper to fix if you had done so when first told the ball joints and bearings were bad. Now the repair costs will be MUCH higher.
You KNEW the ball joints and bearings were bad yet continued to motor on.
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if your in minnesota know a great tech charges half of other shops
From that one crappy picture, looks like just the wheel and tire are damaged, but we know that isn’t true. My personal opinion is you shouldn’t even be allowed to fix it or get another vehicle. You knowingly put the safety of others at risk driving when you knew there were defects that could affect the road worthiness and your ability to control your vehicle. Harsh, I know but that’s my opinion.
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On these cars you have to stay on top of the ball joints at the best of times. They are notorious for eating the joints up. In the 8 years that I’ve owned my 07 Compass, I’ve replaced them three times.
How do the ball joints fail? Broken ball? Broken socket? Broken stud?
I have never had a ball joint failure on a vehicle that I serviced and there have been hundreds of them ranging from Chevettes to 1 ton pickups. A dab of grease even twice a year is all that seems to be needed.
I didn’t realize you could grease a ball joint (without taking it apart) unless it was equipped with a grease fitting. Are you referring to that type of ball joint? That’s the type I have on my truck and I’ve never had to replace them in 47 years. I do need to grease them though maybe 2 times in 3 years. On my Corolla, there’s no grease fittings, so never greased, but no trouble in 25 years. I think the Corolla has a ball joint on the lower control arm, but no upper ball joint.
When there is no zerk fitting this grease gun adapter
allows you to shoot grease through the rubber boots on ball joints, etc. If the boot is first cleaned and then marked with a paint stick you can repeatedly reinsert the needle in the same hole without damaging the boot. I have had to replace a few boots after many years using that needle but those were rare.
I have something similar to that for lubing the u-joints on my truck’s driveline. It’s such a tight fit even the original needle was too wide, I had to file it down to make one side flat enough to fit. Good idea there to use it to lube ball joints too. Thanks.
Rod, They wear out normally, but fast. I don’t let them get to the point that they can break. They start clunking around, and you can see movement when you test it. Then it’s a matter of checking them regularly enough until they definitely need changing. I’ve had to replaced the original ball joints/control arms under warranty (nylon, no zerks), and then had just the ball joints replaced one at a time by other mechanics out of warranty (these ones took grease). Earlier this year I changed out both control arms again at home - these came with nylon ball joints again. Multiple parts stores, mechanics, etc. have said to me that these cars kill ball joints.
i had a honda recently and found out the lower ball joint is in tension vs compression all the time. just the way the knuckle sits on the a-arm. why is it backwards vs most american cars? honda does not want to pay the original designer patent fees? why does honda use a goofy auto trans design? same reason? i saw a 2k mercedes with a broken lower ball joint for sale cheap. i did not dig into mercedes ball joint design. but it seems any ball joint can fail. some more than others
With strut suspension the ball joint would seem to be subject to lateral stress only.