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Ball Joint - Motorcraft OEM or Moog
- Thread starter blupupher
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Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
Originally Posted By: Trav
The link works fine. You have too much time to worry about things that amount to nothing.
Your posting skills, or the lack thereof, is causing a side scroll bar for the entire thread.
For those of us who are using a 15 inch notebook screen, that can be an inconvenience.
First world problem #465.....
Somewhere in a 3rd world country a hippo just pooped in an entire villages drinking water. Now that's an inconvenience...lol
Originally Posted By: Trav
The link works fine. You have too much time to worry about things that amount to nothing.
Your posting skills, or the lack thereof, is causing a side scroll bar for the entire thread.
For those of us who are using a 15 inch notebook screen, that can be an inconvenience.
First world problem #465.....
Somewhere in a 3rd world country a hippo just pooped in an entire villages drinking water. Now that's an inconvenience...lol
1. Don't skimp on the cheapest junk at (anywhere) Rockauto.
2. Sealed does not mean they will last longer if you don't service them, it just means you CAN'T service them.
3. No you don't need to spend 2X as much for Motorcraft. It is an assurance of a certain quality level above junk, but it's not going to be a premium part either, though it is going to be better than what is typically called "OEM" or especially "Service Grade".
4. If cost is an issue, why are you talking about the cost to do all ball joints left, right, top, and bottom? Lowers wear faster than uppers and lowers usually don't require an alignment, so for this reason I would at least do the ONE ball joint needing it, and consider doing both lower joints while at it (though there is no less labor to wait and do the other side later! It would be a matter of time you have available and convenience to do so).
5. Moog aren't all they're cracked up to be. These days it seems like they replaced manufacturing costs with internet shill marketing costs. They are not "junk" but not worth a price premium.
6. Any average or better grade ball joints will easily go 15K mi between servicing if you use good grease, unless it's severe service and then it's the use, not the grease that makes the difference.
7. I disagree about not letting a quick lube place lube them if it has been a long time, say 15K mi or more AND over 2 years. Low quality grease is better than none, but on the other hand if you've put on 15K mi in less than 2 years, it would likely a lot of hwy miles which doesn't put the wear or grease/oil leach out interval on them that longer/harder periods do. If you originally use a good synthetic grease you may get little to no oil separation leech out.
8. You're sweating over a part that lasted 150K mi. Without any new grease. Will the vehicle even last another 150K mi? Maybe, but ball joints are not expensive in the grand scheme of things, if you just do them as needed instead of redoing the whole front end when it only needs one $20 ball joint. Usually, it's time to replace lower ball joints before uppers or control arm bushings are needed, and if you use a decent / average quality lower ball joint, it will last until the next time the vehicle is due for replacements, THEN it is time to do the uppers, with control arm if it's a one-piece assembly, and upper control arm with new bushings, and either new lower control arm or replace the bushings in it.
TLDR: No, using Moog won't magically extend the service interval, but yes, any decent quality ball joint will go 15K mi. if you start out with decent grease. 15K mi and then several thousand miles more. Ball joints do not need to be greased frequently if you use good quality synthetic grease so the base oil doesn't separate out. That is how the OEM got away with sealed for life.
You can do exactly the same, use a greaseable ball joint with good synthetic grease then run it many dozens of thousands of miles. However, as the rest of the suspension components wear further, it will put more wear on the ball joints too, so even if you replaced the factory ball joints with the exact same thing, they still might wear out faster the second time around.
Ultimately if one wants to own an older vehicle, one needs to learn to DIY the repairs, then you trade your time doing things like replacing just the lower ball joint when it fails, instead of throwing a lot of money at replacing the whole upper and lower suspension. YMMV, if you have a lot of free time and know that in the future you won't, it could make sense to pay it forward and preemptively restore more to a factory state now rather than later, at higher cost.
TLDR Shortest Version Possible: You're overthinking this. Replace the ONE ball joint that failed, lube it with synthetic grease and you're done. Crystal balls never work as well as advertised.
2. Sealed does not mean they will last longer if you don't service them, it just means you CAN'T service them.
3. No you don't need to spend 2X as much for Motorcraft. It is an assurance of a certain quality level above junk, but it's not going to be a premium part either, though it is going to be better than what is typically called "OEM" or especially "Service Grade".
4. If cost is an issue, why are you talking about the cost to do all ball joints left, right, top, and bottom? Lowers wear faster than uppers and lowers usually don't require an alignment, so for this reason I would at least do the ONE ball joint needing it, and consider doing both lower joints while at it (though there is no less labor to wait and do the other side later! It would be a matter of time you have available and convenience to do so).
5. Moog aren't all they're cracked up to be. These days it seems like they replaced manufacturing costs with internet shill marketing costs. They are not "junk" but not worth a price premium.
6. Any average or better grade ball joints will easily go 15K mi between servicing if you use good grease, unless it's severe service and then it's the use, not the grease that makes the difference.
7. I disagree about not letting a quick lube place lube them if it has been a long time, say 15K mi or more AND over 2 years. Low quality grease is better than none, but on the other hand if you've put on 15K mi in less than 2 years, it would likely a lot of hwy miles which doesn't put the wear or grease/oil leach out interval on them that longer/harder periods do. If you originally use a good synthetic grease you may get little to no oil separation leech out.
8. You're sweating over a part that lasted 150K mi. Without any new grease. Will the vehicle even last another 150K mi? Maybe, but ball joints are not expensive in the grand scheme of things, if you just do them as needed instead of redoing the whole front end when it only needs one $20 ball joint. Usually, it's time to replace lower ball joints before uppers or control arm bushings are needed, and if you use a decent / average quality lower ball joint, it will last until the next time the vehicle is due for replacements, THEN it is time to do the uppers, with control arm if it's a one-piece assembly, and upper control arm with new bushings, and either new lower control arm or replace the bushings in it.
TLDR: No, using Moog won't magically extend the service interval, but yes, any decent quality ball joint will go 15K mi. if you start out with decent grease. 15K mi and then several thousand miles more. Ball joints do not need to be greased frequently if you use good quality synthetic grease so the base oil doesn't separate out. That is how the OEM got away with sealed for life.
You can do exactly the same, use a greaseable ball joint with good synthetic grease then run it many dozens of thousands of miles. However, as the rest of the suspension components wear further, it will put more wear on the ball joints too, so even if you replaced the factory ball joints with the exact same thing, they still might wear out faster the second time around.
Ultimately if one wants to own an older vehicle, one needs to learn to DIY the repairs, then you trade your time doing things like replacing just the lower ball joint when it fails, instead of throwing a lot of money at replacing the whole upper and lower suspension. YMMV, if you have a lot of free time and know that in the future you won't, it could make sense to pay it forward and preemptively restore more to a factory state now rather than later, at higher cost.
TLDR Shortest Version Possible: You're overthinking this. Replace the ONE ball joint that failed, lube it with synthetic grease and you're done. Crystal balls never work as well as advertised.
Grease-able joints have a metal on metal ball/stud design whereas the sealed joints are a polished ball on teflon liner. In theory, the metal on metal design is actually tougher, but ONLY if they are regularly greased. If you can't confidently say that these joints are going to be properly greased, then go with the OEM sealed unit. If it's being serviced at a quick lube, I wouldn't be surprised if they took some shortcuts with servicing.
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