If I had a relatively young car. Like if a ball joint prematurely wore out on a 5 year old car. I'd probably only do the one joint.

On anything older I'd go ahead and change things in pairs. You will have to cough up alignment $$$ and the second joint is probably not too far behind in wear.

 

Yeah my 96 gt is popping going in reverse out of my driveway to. The car is lowered but it seems the ball joints are ok, I may just replace the tie rods and see if that helps. My steering feels like it sticks every now and then to, any ideas on what causes that? On the ball joints, do you have to have them pressed in or can u hammer them in?

 

How can you know if your tie rod ends are bad? Sorry, I know this is kind of a simple question but I am just getting started working on my car.

 

Lubricate the tie rod.

If it Ford's Crap without a Lubrication Valve, then replace them in pairs. You dont want two alignments.

Basicly, this hapens at your turning your wheel to sharp left or right and during the start of the day. Very common

 

i wouldn't play games with those. i had a ball joint totally let loose on my 86 chevy cd20 truck. they were the original ones[278k miles], they looked cracked, but not what i would have thought to totally let go the way they did. i hit a sharp corner, and a deer ran out, and when i jerked the wheel i think it let loose causing me to loose control, and not be able to steer the truck out of the ditch. had to have my buddy tow me out. i broke the passenger side outter tie rod end, and shock on the passenger side front. they werent making the infamous swoosh noise that i always knew a ball joint made when they were going up. it just popped going over bumps. pop pop pop like popcorn. not that loud either just noticeable.

 

the tie rod ends i put on only 3 months before too, and they let loose on the impact. what a bummer ;[