Last year ive had all four of my front ball joints replaced. I took my truck in today for an alighnment and the guy says that my upper left balljoint needs replacing, he and other garages say that this is common and will need constant replacing every 10000 miles due to my tires? Is this true? If so, i may be selling my truck because this ball joint situation has been hell and very expensive.

 

That seems very excessive. Check them for play yourself to see if they are telling you the truth. Jack up the side they say is bad, grab the tire at the 12 and 6 oclock positions and push/pull to see if there is play in the joint.

My thoughts would be either
A) They are full of crap
B) Used inferior parts the last time
or
C) Did a crappy job on the install

 

You can replace them with greasable ball joints and just grease them religiously with every oil change. You can get more than 10K out of a ball joint, even crappy Chinese ones.

 

I would see how they would be worn out already.Even cheap ones should last longer than that.

I agree with checking them yourself and if you do find that they are bad,make sure you get good ones this time and possible even change shops to have them installed.

 

I hope you don't mind that I hitchhike on your thread, but I too have a question about balljoints. My 1999 sport 1500 needs a right upper ball joint. But it appears similar to fords design where the whole upper control arm would need replaced, as the ball joint is not removable. Or is there a method to removal.

 

I think this guys just wants you to keep spending money.

 

When I changed the sealed original factory ball joints
on my 1995 2wd Ram several months ago,
the lower ball joints were definitely worn out and loose
but the upper ball joints were still pretty tight
.... and this was at 180,000 miles