My '05 Pontiac G-6 w/57,000 miles supposedly needs the lower ball joints & controller arm replaced. Is this unusual for a car w/this mileage & would it be wise to use parts from a salvage yard?
The miles are pretty low. Is the ball joint and control arm a single unit on this vehicle? Unless the control arm is damaged there is no reason to replace it, unless of course the ball joint and arm are a unit. A used control arm would be fine to use but do not under any circumstance use a used ball joint.
You might provide some details about who told you this car needed ball joints, any symptoms that may exist (noises, irregular tire wear, etc.), and what led up to this diagnosis.
The mileage is low but it’s possible the ball joint/control arm could need replacement if the car sees a lot of rough roads, gets driven through deep rain water, sees a lot of road salt, etc.
The reason I mention “who told you” is that if this was a chain store such as Firestone, etc. you should get another opinion as some of them are notorious for selling unneeded ball joints.
And I agree, no used parts on something like this.
I once went to three shops in a week with my '84 Buick. They all told me that there was something wrong with my steering. The trouble was that they told me three different things. It turned out that none of things that they found wrong were really wrong.
It is possible that the ball joints are bad. Often, it is less expensive to replace the control arm with new “loaded” control arms with the new ball joints already installed than it is to remove the old ones and press in new ones. It depends on the car and I am not familiar with G6s. If the car has aluminum control arms, that might be the only way to replace ball joints because the aluminum will not support the removal and replacement process.