I was looking around the archives and noticed some threads about bearing failures as well as ball joint failures? Whats the story with this and what do I look for in my routine inspections/maintnance?

 

I don't know what you have heard but I have a 2001 dodge ram sport and bought it last October with about 35,000 miles. While rotating the tires I noticed the u-joint on the drivers side axle was starting to go bad. Don't know why because the truck looks very clean and I don't think it has been abused or off roaded. Still had factory tires on it. Took it back under warranty and while the dealership was fixing the u-joints they found out the ball joints were bad (I had complained about the truck pulling hard in one direction). I don't know why this happened with such low miles but it did and they fixed it luckily.