Is it normal for the lower ball joint to have a little up and down play? I jacked my car up to look at a few things. I couldent move the wheel up and down with my hands at all, but when I used the jack arm for leverage I got a tiny bit of up down play on both sides. Is this normal?

 

Are you sure its coming from teh ball joints? There shouldnt be any play

 

Pretty sure, its only about 2mm of movement. I could see the boot around the ball joint expanding slightly.

 

What kinda made me think it was normal is that it was the exact same on the other side.

 

Now that I think about it, I think they are fine. My car drives straight, no squeeking, no clunking when going over bumps. Only thing I have is a slight steering wheel vibration and a random click when making slow sharp right hand turns (which I believe is my passenger side cv joint).

 

What are the classic signs of worn ball joints on a TL?

 

That and you bad vibrations when steering

 

So there not supposed to move at all? I couldent get movement whatsoever with my hands, only when I stuck a lever under the tire and pulled up did i get anything to move. And that was a good amount of force.

 

when my started to squeak, my mechanic replaced it. when he was replacing it he mentioned that it also had some play. btw, he replaced it with after market ball joint, and its lasting me much longer than OEM ones did in the past.

 

Was it a lower ball joint? how much that run you?

 

up and down, left and right...

its never good to restrict your ball joints

but i never knew balls had joints, let alone a lower and upper.. kinda like fast and slow right? i do that all the time. never had a problem with my ball joints


thats a good question though.

 

murky likes ball joints in his mouth

 

gross!