fsttyms1

Well i jacked up the car today to lay under it and look up (i do this often to think) and i started to grab and shake things and i discovered i have a bad left side upper control arm balljoint And with Honda Brilliant design on some parts, you cant just replace the balljoint, you have to replace teh control arm.

Well thats all from me for now. Off to the cottage to drink!

jonjacob

Yeaaaaa Booze And Strippers

GreeneggsandHam

replacing the entire arm sucks. I had to replace an entire knuckle on my previous car just b/c the lower balljoint was bad. good luck!

aaronnn

my ball joint went bad last week. the car was knocking insanely from the front.

Honda's design sucks. the upper arm isnt the only problem, even getting that out is a pain! you have to loosen up the struts too so that you can loosen up the upper arm in order to take that whole piece off!! its so irritating to do because of it! replacing a ball joint shouldnt have to be like that, it takes a few hours to do..

plus, the whole camber alignment is done through the ball joint. so when we get a "camber kit" its only an adjustable ball joint! i think its an awful design because if you think about it, once the ball joint goes bad, it becomes very dangerous to drive. plus the camber gets thrown off.. plus people tend to go for drops with stiffer shock settings, causing the ball joint to weaken with every hit on the road.. not good honda.

russianDude

My ball joint was replaced two times on left side, and once on the right side.
I have 2001, with 55K miles.
Its a common problem....

laidback93

I'm really starting to wonder if that is the cause of the knock noise I get every now and then from my front end. It doesn't happen all the time though.

acutee

Is it the one above the tire or the one you look from underneath?

JCharged

iTrader: (5)

It's that Friday the 13th luck....sike I'm JK I have the same problem getting it replaced tommorow by acura dealership...I dread these bastards but ey that's what happens when you have no time to do it yourself and I really don't feel like going through all the trouble either.

fla-tls

I had both lowers go out at around 45k.
Luckily they were covered under warranty.

russianDude

The typical sign (at least for me), is when I turn my steering wheel, while car is parked, I can hear an annoying sqeaking sound coming from the front wheel. When my warranty was over, I went to a mechanic I trust, and he replaced the ball joint for $100 including parts and labor... He installed some after market ball-joint (not a Honda one). I first was concerned that its not Honda OEM part and etc, but its been almost a year, and it works great!
I would not be surprised if Aftermarket ball-joint is of better quality/durability than the one made by Honda.

fsttyms1

Could be. Ive had the knocking noise (randomly) and could never figure out what it was. Ive yanked on every thing many times trying to figure it out. I inspected every thing while doing the conversion and never figured it out till yesterday. Guess i know what it is now.

Its the upper. Shouldnt take more than 45 min to replace. drop the shock out loosen and remove the 3 bolts and its out.

phipark

But how many miles? I remember you saying you had a shit ton of miles.

fsttyms1

207k now.

CleanCL

iTrader: (4)

btw, you do not HAVE to replace the entire arm, the upper balljoin is pressed into the arm. you can easily purchase an aftermarket ball joint (SPC or Ingalls). But for your information, ingalls have an aftermarket low-profile arm w/ balljoint preinstalled.

Niko2000TL

the Balljoint is pressed into the arm, i replaced mine. go to NAPA, they're like 12 bucks a piece or something cheap like that. honda only sells the arm even though the joint is removable.

good luck!

laidback93

I had my mechanic look at it and they found nothing wrong. I'll probably make them specifically check the ball joints next time. However, I'm scared at the thought of what it's going to cost to replace them!

fsttyms1

Niko2000TL

[QUOTE=Niko2000TL]the arm is pressed into the armQUOTE]

haha, i gotta start proofreading what i type otherwise i look like an ass i meant the ball is pressed into the arm (which im sure you figured that out

fsttyms1

Fixed

Da_iLLeZt_TL973

dammmmm i got a bad ball joint too lol i guess we all have bad ball joints

the noise im getting is a knokkin noise when i accelerate and when i brake......its real annoying i wanna get this fixed asap

NHBTL-S

So whats the verdict then guys...getting this balljoint pressed out by some mechanic or actually replacing the whole arm with a new balljoint in it.

russianDude

replacing lower ball-joint only worked for me all the times....

xyrcncp

Exactly. Actually, I had my lower left ball joint go out and one dealership (Radley Acura in VA) said I would need to replace the whole arm, they quoted me about $290 + labor. Went to Pohanka Acura (also in VA), and spoke to a service rep who always deals with my best friend's TL and he said what Radley said was BS, that the joint itself could be changed. Funny thing is that when you pull up the part# through Acura, you have to look up the ball joint for an '02 CL and it will fit the '03 TL. Total came out to $180 (parts and labor + oil change)

shychinoboy

so is the cause of a bad ball joint cuz of loweing the ride or its just a problem in general? i was just about to get some tein ss coilovers and the mechanic told me i would mess up the ball joints.

chewi

damn thats a good question.. i'm curious too

fla-tls

Both of my lowers blew out with less than 50k miles. My car wasn't lowered at all.

I think they can just wear out over time (I really don't like these non-greaseable joints) or be damaged by pot holes or speed bumps taken too fast.

jjar03

Does anybody know here are lower and upper ball joints the same?
I changed my front engine mount today just to discover that my drivers side upper ball joint has nice play in it? So it was not in my case that the mount was making me trouble, it is ball joint as well.

Audiovibe-Mike

i had a ball joint go on my 95 accord. I came to a stop safely, luckily I was only goin about 40km/h. But ya i had to replace the ENTIRE assembly, plus it took out a couple other parts with it.

indoMFP

Holy thread resurrection, Batman.... wait for Kris (the OP to this thread) chimes in... I would check acura parts catalog and see if they are similar part numbers, if so, then yes, if not, then no.... good luck.

nhn23

iTrader: (4)

does the ball joint cause the steering wheel to shake when braking? cause my steering wheel shakes alot when im stoping from 30-40mph

ronrecr_RENAMED

Now you can replace just the ball joint. They hav a tsb on it..

nhn23

iTrader: (4)

guy im really worried about mine. can someone answer my question? is my problem the rotors or the ball joint? steering wheel shakes when braking from 30-40mph

Gfaze

Most likely rotors but get the whole front end inspected just in case. There are some places that will even do free inspections.

kidduce

iTrader: (1)

When ever I had bad rotors it would be at higher speeds more like 50-60, 30-40 sounds a like it could potentially be something else, but thats just me guessing. You never really know what it is man untill you start replacing things, start with the less expensive and go from there.

BensTLS

More or less the rotors. Just take them to autozone, napa or somewhere similar and have them smooth out. Or let's just hope that's the problem.

daNNiebOixDD

iTrader: (3)

anything wrong with driving on knocking noises such as bad balljoints for awhile? mine started knocking RIGHT away after i lowered the car... anothing azine owner told me he had driven on bad balljoints for 2 yrs no problem. whaddaya think...? time to change eh

phee

iTrader: (5)

change it. or your wheel could fall off

daNNiebOixDD

iTrader: (3)

damn that wouldnt be good

hANDYcaptd

iTrader: (5)

You'll still have the other 3 wheels....

TouringLow

same here. i keep thinking its loose hats but mine are all tight on.