My 2003 Liberty Limited (purchased about a year and a half ago) experienced a lower ball joint failure recently. Fortunately we were only traveling about 5 miles an hour when it happened, pulling into a parking spot.
I usually try to do work on the car myself, but when this happened about a week and a half ago, I was getting ready to go out of town in a couple of days and had to have it back up and running for my family.
The shop replaced the lower arm (and ball joint), but it was pretty expensive. They wanted to replace all of the arms and balls and whatnot to the tune of about 1800 dollars.
Now that I am back, I am prepared to embark on the journey of replacing all of this, but I am unsure of the scope of work. The shop tells me that the ball joints cannot be purchased individually, the whole control arm assembly has to be replaced ($132 for an upper, $358.69 for a lower).
I see online there are a number of manufacturers that offer replacement ball joints, sans control arm, and they are not particularly expensive. Am I missing something or is the shop lying to me to sell me marked up parts.
Also, it is my understanding that the ball joints do not have grease nipples on them? Is there an aftermarket solution to that? I recall reading that well and continually greased ball joins last much much longer than otherwise. I would be in favor of spending a bit extra to keep from having to do this again 7 years down the road (this Liberty went in for the ball joint recall and had work done in 2007).
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, anyone on the Big Island of Hawaii on here? I need some Jeep Friends.
I usually try to do work on the car myself, but when this happened about a week and a half ago, I was getting ready to go out of town in a couple of days and had to have it back up and running for my family.
The shop replaced the lower arm (and ball joint), but it was pretty expensive. They wanted to replace all of the arms and balls and whatnot to the tune of about 1800 dollars.
Now that I am back, I am prepared to embark on the journey of replacing all of this, but I am unsure of the scope of work. The shop tells me that the ball joints cannot be purchased individually, the whole control arm assembly has to be replaced ($132 for an upper, $358.69 for a lower).
I see online there are a number of manufacturers that offer replacement ball joints, sans control arm, and they are not particularly expensive. Am I missing something or is the shop lying to me to sell me marked up parts.
Also, it is my understanding that the ball joints do not have grease nipples on them? Is there an aftermarket solution to that? I recall reading that well and continually greased ball joins last much much longer than otherwise. I would be in favor of spending a bit extra to keep from having to do this again 7 years down the road (this Liberty went in for the ball joint recall and had work done in 2007).
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, anyone on the Big Island of Hawaii on here? I need some Jeep Friends.
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