Broken lower ball joint!
12-23-2003, 11:55 PM
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1998 C43
Broken lower ball joint!
Today I found the source (I think) of my vibration. I'm sure I found the source of my strange tire wear. I took it to get an alignment to try to figure out what the heck was going on. After a couple of min the guy says "Come look at this and tell me if I'm seeing things" which is never a good thing to hear while someone is under your car. Turns out the lower ball joint on the front passenger side had collapsed! It wasn't completely in two but it looked like the bottom of the joint had slide off of the spindle (I'm sure there is a more technically correct term for it). After looking at it for a bit longer it seemed that this accounted for the extra camber that the machine had found in that side.
The scary thing is that the guy that looked the car over when I bought it told me that the ball joint boot was torn and that I would have to replace it eventually, so I know that the problem has been there since I got it. I'm scared to drive it at all now that I know, and thinking about all the high-speed stuff that I've done just gives me the creeps. Imagine what would have happened if that thing decided to give up while I was running 135mph! Needless to say it's going to be fixed tomorrow. I just can't figure out how you break a ball joint and don't damage the wheel, (unless the wheel was damaged and the shop just didn't see the ball joint.) The wheel doesn't even wiggle when you tug on it while it's off the ground, so the standard test doesn't turn it up.
The up side is that it's a generic c-class part and not AMG specific so it's only $58 plus ~$130 for labor. I'm guessing that this is going to fix a lot of the little problems that I've been having. Vibration at speed, poorer handling than I expect from an AMG, intermittent Steering Angle Sensor code, a overall darty feeling, and poor tire wear. It might not fix it all, but it now seems like they might all be linked.
Moral of the story: If you have a strange vibration or tire wear that doesn’t seem right. Go get it checked and don’t stop until someone can tell you EXACTLY what’s wrong.
The scary thing is that the guy that looked the car over when I bought it told me that the ball joint boot was torn and that I would have to replace it eventually, so I know that the problem has been there since I got it. I'm scared to drive it at all now that I know, and thinking about all the high-speed stuff that I've done just gives me the creeps. Imagine what would have happened if that thing decided to give up while I was running 135mph! Needless to say it's going to be fixed tomorrow. I just can't figure out how you break a ball joint and don't damage the wheel, (unless the wheel was damaged and the shop just didn't see the ball joint.) The wheel doesn't even wiggle when you tug on it while it's off the ground, so the standard test doesn't turn it up.
The up side is that it's a generic c-class part and not AMG specific so it's only $58 plus ~$130 for labor. I'm guessing that this is going to fix a lot of the little problems that I've been having. Vibration at speed, poorer handling than I expect from an AMG, intermittent Steering Angle Sensor code, a overall darty feeling, and poor tire wear. It might not fix it all, but it now seems like they might all be linked.
Moral of the story: If you have a strange vibration or tire wear that doesn’t seem right. Go get it checked and don’t stop until someone can tell you EXACTLY what’s wrong.
12-24-2003, 01:10 AM
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1998 C43
Originally posted by moebisgold
Ouch, you are very lucky that nothing bad happened.
makes me worry that there was some previous abuse that was unreported. I guess that a manufacturing problem could exist. I've never had an MB balljoint go bad. Tie rod ends are a different story. The rubber seals keep cracking on me. My C36 had hit something on the RF hard enough to bend the spindle but the balljoints were still fine. Previous owners just kept throwing tires at it, for 50 K miles before I got ahold of it. Ball joints are easy to check. Just jack that wheel off the ground by the lower control arm and push and pull the wheel from all possible directions. The pros use hyd. to do this. There should be no slop at all.
I bet that your smiling on how well your ride drives and turns now! Wonder if this is C2turbo's problem. I would have thought that this would be accompanied by big clunks in the steering anbd maybe body, leaping in and out of ruts and all sorts of nasty steering related stuff.
Ouch, you are very lucky that nothing bad happened.
makes me worry that there was some previous abuse that was unreported. I guess that a manufacturing problem could exist. I've never had an MB balljoint go bad. Tie rod ends are a different story. The rubber seals keep cracking on me. My C36 had hit something on the RF hard enough to bend the spindle but the balljoints were still fine. Previous owners just kept throwing tires at it, for 50 K miles before I got ahold of it. Ball joints are easy to check. Just jack that wheel off the ground by the lower control arm and push and pull the wheel from all possible directions. The pros use hyd. to do this. There should be no slop at all. I bet that your smiling on how well your ride drives and turns now!
Wonder if this is C2turbo's problem. I would have thought that this would be accompanied by big clunks in the steering anbd maybe body, leaping in and out of ruts and all sorts of nasty steering related stuff.
I hope to be smiling tomorrow when it's all fixed up. The crazy thing about it was there was no slop. Like I said the standard method of checking didn't show it. Which is why at least two and probably as many as 4 or more qualified techs missed it.
12-24-2003, 01:26 AM
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'05 A4 1.8TQM6
Re: Broken lower ball joint!
Originally posted by J-98C43
Today I found the source (I think) of my vibration. I'm sure I found the source of my strange tire wear. I took it to get an alignment to try to figure out what the heck was going on. After a couple of min the guy says "Come look at this and tell me if I'm seeing things" which is never a good thing to hear while someone is under your car. Turns out the lower ball joint on the front passenger side had collapsed! It wasn't completely in two but it looked like the bottom of the joint had slide off of the spindle (I'm sure there is a more technically correct term for it). After looking at it for a bit longer it seemed that this accounted for the extra camber that the machine had found in that side.
The up side is that it's a generic c-class part and not AMG specific so it's only $58 plus ~$130 for labor. I'm guessing that this is going to fix a lot of the little problems that I've been having. Vibration at speed, poorer handling than I expect from an AMG, intermittent Steering Angle Sensor code, a overall darty feeling, and poor tire wear. It might not fix it all, but it now seems like they might all be linked.
Moral of the story: If you have a strange vibration or tire wear that doesn’t seem right. Go get it checked and don’t stop until someone can tell you EXACTLY what’s wrong.
Today I found the source (I think) of my vibration. I'm sure I found the source of my strange tire wear. I took it to get an alignment to try to figure out what the heck was going on. After a couple of min the guy says "Come look at this and tell me if I'm seeing things" which is never a good thing to hear while someone is under your car. Turns out the lower ball joint on the front passenger side had collapsed! It wasn't completely in two but it looked like the bottom of the joint had slide off of the spindle (I'm sure there is a more technically correct term for it). After looking at it for a bit longer it seemed that this accounted for the extra camber that the machine had found in that side.
The up side is that it's a generic c-class part and not AMG specific so it's only $58 plus ~$130 for labor. I'm guessing that this is going to fix a lot of the little problems that I've been having. Vibration at speed, poorer handling than I expect from an AMG, intermittent Steering Angle Sensor code, a overall darty feeling, and poor tire wear. It might not fix it all, but it now seems like they might all be linked.
Moral of the story: If you have a strange vibration or tire wear that doesn’t seem right. Go get it checked and don’t stop until someone can tell you EXACTLY what’s wrong.
-G-
