Epic Ball Joint Failure
 

So I was backing up out of my parking space at ingles in the runner, and wham, my drivers front sinks, and I'm like wtf? So I get out and my tire is slammed into my fender well like some kinda lowrider. So I lean down and take a look, and whata ya know, my lower ball joint is out of its socket and my control arm is laying on the ground, further more, upon the failure of the balljoint it had yanked my axle out. What a great day. Called AAA and got a tow to the dealership where it is nestled ontop of one of their lifts awaiting two new lower ball joints. The axle was thankfully ok. So the popping I was hearing was obviously not my sway bar bushings like I thought I had diagnosed. Ironically the new bushings came via UPS right after I got back from saying goodbye to the runner for a while. Is it wierd that the ball joint just failed? I looked 2 or 3 times under the car to see if everything was ok, the boots on the joints were not torn but normal, but when the joint was out it was dyr as a bone and not greased at all. Ive only had the runner for 3 months now, and the po said it sat for a while without being driven.

if there never greased theyll wear out faster and eventually break. they can all break. mine on my 90 4runner have grease fittngs everywhere and there not even worn a bit. anything tierod ends pitman arm etc all in a happy state.although my 93 runner has no grease fittings. make me mad cause i hate that. i like greasing them. if grease dont come out when i grease them, or if they wont accept any grease, then i replace them lol. but yea basically that can happen to them, and if the PO didnt ever grease them plus sitting that could do it.

Luckly it happend then and not on a hwy..

Defiantly glad it didnt happen at any speed higher then it did, it would have totaled my runner easy if it had happened at high way speed. I dont think I saw any grease fittings on my 99, anyone know if there are? Before it broke I went to advance auto and got a grease gun to grease the new sway bar bushings, so I have a grease gun now.

I always here these things happening in parking lots...i'm not sure why. I should change mine as preventative maintenance, they concern me sometimes.

Yodas, your profile doesnt say where you are from, but isnt there supposed to be a safety inspection done on any vehicle before the owner ship is transferred to another person? Or is that the BS we have to put up with here in good old Canada?
Obviously had the truck been checked correctly, the ball joint could have been replaced before self destructing and doing further damage to the vehicle.

I live in North Carolina, and its a yearly thing, I don't think it has to be done when the vehicle changes ownership. Plus I worked at Tire Kingdom this past year and had it up in the air at least 3 times, changed the brakes and everything, and I wasnt the only one to look at the vehicle, so I have no idea how it slipped by me, and my fellow workers, I just think its weird that it looked ok on the outside and was relatively tight that it failed like that.

You say it looked ok. Did you grab the wheel and physically give it a good shake while the suspension was in a relaxed position ( when I say relaxed, I mean the floor jack under the lower control arm to lift the tire off the ground ) so that you can shake the wheel from side to side and up and down to feel for play in the ball joint?

pics or it didn't happen...:hillbill:

Yes, we shake down every vehicle that comes in the shop, so I naturally did it to mine, we have lifts that you place on the frame so the wheel is hanging freely, ball joints are typically up and down movement whereas side to side is tie rods I believe. I wish I would have had my camera to take some pics of it, it was nasty looking.

Why did you think it was your sway bar bushings? You need to visibly see what is causing your noise. You had a symptom and assumed it was something it wasn't. Sounds to me like the failing ball joint could have been diagnosed before it came apart.

I would really hate for this to happen to me.

Whats shop do you work at?

how many miles were on them?

toyota had a recall on the lower ball joints in some of there 4runners and tundras.

how much are you paying for parts and labor? this is on my list with a few other things before i head north for snowboarding

So when was the last professional mechanical inspection was done? And who did it? Jiffy Lube?

This thread made me go outside just now and grease my front end. I too have been hearing a creek up front and am diagnosing it as sway bar bushings. Hmmmm..

Anyway, everything is regreased and each fitting only took a few pumps.

The last state inspection had to have been done within the last year, and I dont know where it got done at because it was before I had the vehicle. When I bought the runner, I put new tires on it myself and did the front brakes myself at Tire Kingdom, where I have worked for the past yr. The mechanics there saw no problems with the ball joints, just as I said before we shake down everything coming in the shop, including mine. As for the sway bar bushings, they were looking pretty rough and another thread had just talked about how popping in the front end can be sway bar bushings, so thats what I was going to fix first. I know my way around cars, and how this got by me, and my fellow workers is beyond me.

so, it did make a noise before it busted ? good to know. if my front end crunches I will
have it looked at immediately.

Well, using a crow baw to check for play is the right way to check it. Lots of vehicles do not get inspected properly.

A ball joint is not something that fails quickly. To go from a perfectly good ball joint, to a catastrophic failure, will take way more than a year. That's why inspections are annual. Most suspension/steering components almost never fail without a long before warning.

We don't have factory grease fittings on ours, only on the drive shafts.