Hi Everyone,

I just picked up an '04 Dakota 6 cylinder in pretty decent shape, but after getting my state inspection it need a brake line, shock, and passenger side upper and lower ball joints, not too bad considering I picked up the truck for 3,500. My question is, do these ball joints look like the boot has separated from packing too much grease in there? I paid $550 to have them replaced and don't want to have issues later and be SOL when I can have make sure it's right in the first place, I'm no mechanic but it doesn't look right. Thank you.




Lower Ball Joint


Upper Ball Joint

 

Welcome to the forum.

Yeah, ball joints are a weak point in the Dakota.

From what I can see the boot was not installed properly. That's why it blew out.

 

 

With just 5 miles oh yes ,take it bk to mechanic!

 

....and make sure they realign it, or pay for the realignment if they pull it off again.

 

By the rust holes Looks like you need new control arms. To me it looks like it was pumped too full of grease and the seal blew out who pumped it up?

Hard to be sure with one pic what happened