New ball joints needed at 30,000 miles?

[nano]

We have a 2012 Ram 2500. Just turned 30,000 miles. Brought it in for a recall and oil change, and found that both upper and lower ball joints are shot. Does that seem right? We only haul our 5th wheel about 300 miles total per year. That's the only workout our truck gets.

[SJR]

nano wrote:
We have a 2012 Ram 2500. Just turned 30,000 miles. Brought it in for a recall and oil change, and found that both upper and lower ball joints are shot. Does that seem right? We only haul our 5th wheel about 300 miles total per year. That's the only workout our truck gets.

When I took my truck in for trans fluid change the dealer told me the same thing, wanted around $1,500 to repair. Told him no thanks and took it to my local mechanic for inspection, they found nothing with the ball joints.

[Dave_H_M]

I agree with Tyrone. Alignment shops is one place I stay away from.

If my junk is driving OK and the tires are not wearing uneven, I am good to go.

Brings to mind a tire shop in Myrtle Beach. I had the F 250 with 20 some thousand miles on it for an a adjustment on one of the tires that separated. Woman at the counter tried to sell me an alignment because of the mileage. I sat there and watched the same scenario with a couple of other customers. When i got my new tire mounted, i got the hey out of Dodge. :B

[TyroneandGladys]

Our experience with shops and alignment is that many alignment shops are rip off artists.
Two examples DW took a car in for alignment and had to sign a statement that she was driving a unsafe vehicle against the shops advice because the complete front end was shot and could fall off of the car at any time. Took to the dealer could not find anything wrong and was fine for the next 6 years till it was sold.
Just recently our mechanic that could not do an alignment on our motorhome checked out the front end and found no problems. Took going to three alignment shops before we found one that did not claim that the front end needed major repairs.
So from our experience it is just as hard to find a honest alignment shop as finding a honest politician.

[time2roll]

Does not sound right no matter the load or maintenance.
Any chance it is still under warranty? At least get a second opinion.

[bigg-limo]

goducks10 wrote:
Not impossible but kinda rare with those miles if you're running stock tires. I read the Cummins forum and the majority of ball joint issues are guys with larger tires.
Got 32,000 on mine and no BJ issues.

Got an '06 3500 dually with 112k. Half those miles were with oversized tires. Truck still drives like it did when I bought it. Getting the steering linkage done because of two other recalls.

[stufarmer]

It was my experience when I worked in our dealership service departments, (family owned) the main reason for sealed service points was because the typical owner or drive threw lube shops over greased them, blowing the rubber seal. That caused sooner internal contamination that resulted in premature wear. Other than that, it was heavier than normal weights, or larger of-set wheels & tires. That has been a few yrs ago, but at the time, 30k replacement was very rare.

[The_Painting_Te]

I owned two Dodge Dakotas since 1999, and the first repair I had on both was with the ball joints. Not sure what that means, but take it for what it's worth. Camp on!

[Sharopete]

Got around 120,000 on my '05 3500 CTD Ram. Not sure what changes Dodge has made in the front, but in the 2005 the upper ball joint was really a king pin rather than a true ball joint. As such it comes from the factory with vertical play. That vertical play is sometimes mistaken for an out of spec joint requiring replacement.

[FishOnOne]

Wes Tausend wrote:

FishOnOne wrote:

Wes Tausend wrote:
Then there is the question: Do ball joints always maintain an adequate film of grease on their contact surface?
...

I would think with a thick viscous grease and identical mating surfaces (ball and cup) that there will always be a thin boundary layer of greese. Also I like to use grease that contains moly as that creates a very slippery surface.

Troy,

I'm not so sure that grease always stays in between the mating surfaces indefinately. In the case of a rough road, the grease may suction back and forth, replenishing the lube film. But on a very smooth road, so little "lube distribution" movement may take place as to allow a zero film condition to develop. Then the joint may be dry on some greaseable aftermarket balljoints, steel-on-steel.

One of the reasons a dry contact may occur may be more likely on a solid axle 4x4 Ford (or Dodge) is that there is no rocking motion induced by independent suspension arms compressing vertically because of a wavy (unlevel) road for instance. The only motion that these trapped live-axle type ball joints make is rotational during steering. So no additional "side reservoir" grease is dragged back to the pressure points, once it has squeezed out. City and smooth highway driving may be tougher on aftermarket ball joints than rough roads.

That is why I earlier referred to the mortar-pestle effect. Imagine I am crushing corn into flour. If I do not occasionally raise the pestle to allow more corn to fall under it, I will eventually grind what is there to fine powder, then nothing. The same seems true of Ford ball joints on my trucks. The ballstem is on top like a pestle, the receiving cup under it like a mortar. The ball stem only rotates (steers). Unless some road bump happens to momentarily lift the stem away from the cup, I could just as well be spinning the ball in one place under high pressure and at high speed to accelerate the slower, but eventual, dry contact that I speak of.

And that is why I think maybe Ford has thought this through and now uses the greaseless balljoints with self-lubing plastic cups. These OEM greaseless joints may very well be superior to aftermarket steel-on-steel replacements. Looking at YouTube, NAPA may offer the plastic cups in a greaseable design for those that might agree with me on the virtues of plastic, but still feel better about periodic maintainence lubing.

Anyway, whatever happened to my truck was a very high friction condition until the balljoint spacing re-set perfectly matched the factory tolerance between the axle yoke and spindle yoke. The improper 1st install caused the upper and lower to conflict with one another. In spite of the small contact surfaces, balljoints can and do have high friction associated with them under some conditions. The end goal is the least amount possible friction at all times, however that is achieved.

Does what I'm trying to say make any more sense now?

Here is an interesting YouTube cut-apart of a worn Ford greaseless balljoint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04DJ1R5cSy4

----------------
Concerning using moly grease, I would think that a good chassis grease is required too. From oils to stiff grease, some lubricants do withstand the specific static loads better. One example is the crater compound we used on locomotive drives. It is a thick, black, tarry grease that sticks well to, and drags around on moving surfaces. Locomotives largely avoid gear transmissions because of natural tooth wear under such high torque loads. Torque conversion range, from stall to max speed, is achieved electrically. But they cannot help but have one gear, a pinion gear shrink attached to the traction motor shaft that directly drives the large ring gear on the driven wheel side. Since each motor (of six) puts out well over 600hp, there is a terrific sustained load on this gear mesh. The thick crater compound drags over the teeth which is good. But if the lube containment pan is knocked off by track debris, there is a danger the pinion gear will get so hot for lack of lube, it will expand and slip on the motor shaft.

Wes
...

Wes,
I understand your logic exactly and makes perfect sense. My comment above assumes that the ball joint has a grease zerk that allows you to introduce fresh grease on top of the ball joint which replenishes the grease inside as the old grease dries and gets pulverized.

Anyways I'm not a ball joint expert by no means so my comments are my opinion.

Good discussion....

[donfrump]

nano wrote:
We have a 2012 Ram 2500. Just turned 30,000 miles. Brought it in for a recall and oil change, and found that both upper and lower ball joints are shot. Does that seem right? We only haul our 5th wheel about 300 miles total per year. That's the only workout our truck gets.

if its a diesel and its been on ruff roads its possible but all ball joints at 30K have a little movement in a front heavy vehicle such as yours.may not be enough to replace yet get a second opinion
also if its been driven a lot in real wet conditions and left to sit
at long times and not greased etc it can cause premature ball joint failure

[Wes_Tausend]

FishOnOne wrote:

Wes Tausend wrote:
Then there is the question: Do ball joints always maintain an adequate film of grease on their contact surface?
...

I would think with a thick viscous grease and identical mating surfaces (ball and cup) that there will always be a thin boundary layer of greese. Also I like to use grease that contains moly as that creates a very slippery surface.

Troy,

I'm not so sure that grease always stays in between the mating surfaces indefinately. In the case of a rough road, the grease may suction back and forth, replenishing the lube film. But on a very smooth road, so little "lube distribution" movement may take place as to allow a zero film condition to develop. Then the joint may be dry on some greaseable aftermarket balljoints, steel-on-steel.

One of the reasons a dry contact may occur may be more likely on a solid axle 4x4 Ford (or Dodge) is that there is no rocking motion induced by independent suspension arms compressing vertically because of a wavy (unlevel) road for instance. The only motion that these trapped live-axle type ball joints make is rotational during steering. So no additional "side reservoir" grease is dragged back to the pressure points, once it has squeezed out. City and smooth highway driving may be tougher on aftermarket ball joints than rough roads.

That is why I earlier referred to the mortar-pestle effect. Imagine I am crushing corn into flour. If I do not occasionally raise the pestle to allow more corn to fall under it, I will eventually grind what is there to fine powder, then nothing. The same seems true of Ford ball joints on my trucks. The ballstem is on top like a pestle, the receiving cup under it like a mortar. The ball stem only rotates (steers). Unless some road bump happens to momentarily lift the stem away from the cup, I could just as well be spinning the ball in one place under high pressure and at high speed to accelerate the slower, but eventual, dry contact that I speak of.

And that is why I think maybe Ford has thought this through and now uses the greaseless balljoints with self-lubing plastic cups. These OEM greaseless joints may very well be superior to aftermarket steel-on-steel replacements. Looking at YouTube, NAPA may offer the plastic cups in a greaseable design for those that might agree with me on the virtues of plastic, but still feel better about periodic maintainence lubing.

Anyway, whatever happened to my truck was a very high friction condition until the balljoint spacing re-set perfectly matched the factory tolerance between the axle yoke and spindle yoke. The improper 1st install caused the upper and lower to conflict with one another. In spite of the small contact surfaces, balljoints can and do have high friction associated with them under some conditions. The end goal is the least amount possible friction at all times, however that is achieved.

Does what I'm trying to say make any more sense now?

Here is an interesting YouTube cut-apart of a worn Ford greaseless balljoint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04DJ1R5cSy4

----------------
Concerning using moly grease, I would think that a good chassis grease is required too. From oils to stiff grease, some lubricants do withstand the specific static loads better. One example is the crater compound we used on locomotive drives. It is a thick, black, tarry grease that sticks well to, and drags around on moving surfaces. Locomotives largely avoid gear transmissions because of natural tooth wear under such high torque loads. Torque conversion range, from stall to max speed, is achieved electrically. But they cannot help but have one gear, a pinion gear shrink attached to the traction motor shaft that directly drives the large ring gear on the driven wheel side. Since each motor (of six) puts out well over 600hp, there is a terrific sustained load on this gear mesh. The thick crater compound drags over the teeth which is good. But if the lube containment pan is knocked off by track debris, there is a danger the pinion gear will get so hot for lack of lube, it will expand and slip on the motor shaft.

Wes
...

[Gale_Hawkins]

brooks379 wrote:
Truck dealers can charge a lot of money to replace the cheap Ball/U joint they put in trucks. I have never had to replace a Spicer or Moog grease able joint after I installed them and always used quality grease regularly with them. You can talk until the cows come home but in the end you need.... QUALITY GREASE ABLE BALL/U JOINTS.... We have owned a lot of big semi's and heavy duty pick ups and it all comes down to Quality parts and Quality grease !!

I agree.

Dealerships and shops that do not know how to correctly use a grease gun I try to avoid.

[FishOnOne]

Wes Tausend wrote:

brooks379 wrote:
Truck dealers can charge a lot of money to replace the cheap Ball/U joint they put in trucks. I have never had to replace a Spicer or Moog grease able joint after I installed them and always used quality grease regularly with them. You can talk until the cows come home but in the end you need.... QUALITY GREASE ABLE BALL/U JOINTS.... We have owned a lot of big semi's and heavy duty pick ups and it all comes down to Quality parts and Quality grease !!

Then there is the question: Do ball joints always maintain an adequate film of grease on their contact surface?
...

I would think with a thick viscous grease and identical mating surfaces (ball and cup) that there will always be a thin boundary layer of greese. Also I like to use grease that contains moly as that creates a very slippery surface.

[Wes_Tausend]

brooks379 wrote:
Truck dealers can charge a lot of money to replace the cheap Ball/U joint they put in trucks. I have never had to replace a Spicer or Moog grease able joint after I installed them and always used quality grease regularly with them. You can talk until the cows come home but in the end you need.... QUALITY GREASE ABLE BALL/U JOINTS.... We have owned a lot of big semi's and heavy duty pick ups and it all comes down to Quality parts and Quality grease !!

I sure agree with having chassis zerks on most items, like u-joints and shaft splines for instance. But there is a good chance that your trucks would conveniently steer slightly better/easier with nylon-cupped ball joints. And I'm not sure plastic (nylon?) cups are compatable with having a hole in them for a grease path. Other than corrosion resistance, is grease even needed with these type joints? Plastic 5th wheel lube-plate washers come to mind, in this case cleaner than gobs of grease. Some grease is needed for corrosion protection of course.

Then there is the question: Do ball joints always maintain an adequate film of grease on their contact surface? On smooth roads, there is often a lot of steady pressure on the tiny ball while it supports the weight of the vehicle. This is akin to a mortar-and-pestle effect. On the other hand, steady bouncing on a rough road might suck grease back in between enough that rough roads are much better off with greasable steel-on-steel.

I now don't mind the steel-on-steel ball joints in my pick-up too much, especially since they have been re-installed correctly. But the steering is just a bit stiffer yet. The easy-steering Excursion still does track just slightly better with original factory greaseless joints. Of course my Excursion has a V-10 rather than the heavier diesel, but I don't believe there is a lot of difference in weight. The Triton engines are some of the heaviest gassers Ford has ever made, I believe with even the 5.4L V8 weighing more than the old 460 cu in.

Wes
...