ponyponer

basically i posted this last in general, but never got any replies. i figure since this forum gets more hits, and i was most particularly talking about my 5.0 i'll post it here.so how often does everyone grease their bushings if at all? i do ALMOST every oil change. every few i may let it go. i changed the oil on my 93 5.0 yesterday, and my buddy was changing his oil on his f250, and we were at his house. i already had my oil, and the filter, and so did he, but i asked him if he had any grease, and he said he didn't, but we could ride up the street to the auto store, and buy some. he said this was the first time he's done his in over a year, and said it had been almost 15k miles. for some reason i have had front end components go on most of my vehicles. sometimes with fairly low mileage as well. he said my control arms, and ball joints looked blown out. i know they're deteriorated looking, but they're still working. his opinion was i could probably get a few more years out of them. same with the universal joints. with just about 114k miles the control arms, and ball joints in the front are original. so are the universal joints, and the rear other than the rear arms. i broke a tie rod at about 48k miles on this car, and i've still got the one i replaced. greased it every oil change[6k miles] and still it went. i did get airborne, and hit a pothole pretty hard, so that explains it. so how often does everyone do it? just curious. any stories about wheels falling off, or breaking a tie rod, or a ball joint letting loose would be great too.

fourfivefour

You should grease your car every time you change the oil.
It's also a good time to check your front end components while you have the car jacked up changing the oil.
Also, clean battery cables, check all fluids, lights, wipersand tires.
The fleet I maintain we do this every 5K miles. Plus pull the wheels and check the brakes.
Basically go over the whole car and fix whatever is wrong.

ponyponer

yeah i basically grease every oil change. every now, and then here or there i won't for one. once i went more than a few without greasing the universal joints even though i did the front end all that time. they were making some noise, but i greased em up, and no problem.

ponyponer

oh one thing i forgot to mention. from now on i was thinking about getting non grease fitting components. anyone know how good they work?

mjr46

a greaseable joint will always outlast a nongreaseable one .....if a greaseable one is maintained well it can often last for many years however non greasable ones what happens is the grease dries up and since it doesn't have a fitting where you can push the old out or insert new grease the joint wears quicker

ponyponer

yeah well thanks for that. i think i'll still stick with the grease ones then.