Long story short, I bought my 98 hatch off a kid about a month ago. The interior was dirty as hell and I had a voucher off dealfind for a free cleaning and oil change. When I picked up the car they said the ball joints were toast and needed to be replaced. They then tried to tell me it would take 4 hours labour to replace them which is crap, but when I had my friend (licensed mech) look at it, he said they were fine.

Now there seems to be a bit of a discrepancy as to whether the car should be free of load or under load when checking the ball joints.

Anyone know which is right?

 

Mine squeak when under load and turning, I checked them and the front driver side boot is busted. Any noise coming from them?

 

No noise whatsoever. I was told that when the ball joints are done they are quite noisy. But mine makes no noise.

 

What difference are you seeing in the joint under load and not under load? IMHO there shouldn't be any lateral play in the joint in either case

 

The issue is that I have one shop telling me they are done (checked it free of load and want to charge me $600 to replace them) and one shop telling me there's nothing wrong with them at all (checked it under load and was going to do it for $170). Does it make a difference in terms of how you check it? Or was the first shop trying to make some quick money?

 

Unless you think your friend wants to kill you, I think he's probably a better reference than some quick lube place you visit with a coupon.

 

Okay thanks

 

I agree with the logic about a quick lube place with a coupon. Those places are so slimy. I would check my oil level if I was you. They use the cheapest, crappiest oil they can buy.

I've seen completely obliterated ball joints. As the name suggests, it's a ball in socket. The ball needs lube in the socket. If the lube has been dried up, or whatever, it will become very noisy and very loose and sloppy. I pulled one off of a pickup truck and it was like a wet noodle, when the replacement ball joint was stiff and secure. I could also pull the ball straight up and down about a half inch

If your steering and front end suspension is really sloppy, then you might want to give you ball joints a look. $600 is completely outrageous. $170 is reasonable. It's an easy job.