Good to hear you've got a trustworthy shop to go to.

Ball joints - even the OE ones that came on the car - can have either a very long life or a very short one. Inadequate lubrication is the usual cause of death, either from insufficient lube, loss of lube due to torn boots (the little rubber thingies that are supposed to keep the grease in and the dirt and water out), or contamination due to immersion of the BJ in water. I've got a scary little "souvenir" that I'll have to post up a picture of.


Norm

 

At the end of the 07 season, I thought I had an issue with the steering rack. The car felt like it was wandering (wobbling) on grooved pavement. The car had about 9000 miles and six track days on it. I took it into the dealership last fall and they "couldn't find anything wrong". I took it in this past spring to try some different alignment specs and they found a bad ball joint. They replaced it under warranty and all was good in 08 (six track days and another 5000 miles).

Another data point.

 

I've been thinking of using the Steeda X5 on my car, but I have a bit of a concern related to the longer length of the stud. Wouldn't this give the ball joint more leverage at the lower spindle mount when under high G loads? I'm not worried about the ball joint, but rather the OEM spindle.

 

My scary little souvenir. That's the OE driver side upper balljoint that came on my '79 Malibu, which failed at less than 10,000 miles on it with the four of us on board - and only about 150 yards away from my house. There wasn't much more lube in it when it tore through than you see here, I only cleaned some dry grime off of it so I could keep it in the office as a curiosity.




Norm

 

Too bad they don't put grease fittings on these anymore.

 

Well, I just got back from the shop and things are much better now. Everything is nice and stable and I noticed the car tracks a little better now. I did not go with the X-5 but went wiht another brand "splicer" per recomendation of the shop. Im not too sure about the X5 joints but these have little teeth to help hold it better. The swap went smoothly, however, they were a little finiky so we decided to weld them to the lower arm. Sounds scary but it turned out pretty good. The only downside to this (if you want to look at it as a downside) is that in X ammount of years when these give out the whole arm will have to be replaced. Dosent bother me, it will give me an excuse (and a necessity) to upgrade.

Thanks for everyones help on the matter!