Scotty,
2004 Mercury Grand Marquis. Driver-side upper ball joint problem. New Moog greaseable ball joints at about $35 each and wheel alignment afterwards.
I had a shop install them. I put 600 miles on the car. I saw green grease that had dripped down to the lower arm and ground. I looked at the boot and it has a tear in the fold that is big enough for me to put two fingers into and I can feel some other stringy bits of rubber torn back.
Shop says this is a part failure and not an installation screw up where the boot was pinched and torn. I was going to do the ball joints myself, but other life events got in the way and I just took it to the local independent shop I've used for general maintenance. Since supplied the parts they won't warranty the part. I think it was an installation screw up that tore the boot.
In the six months prior to having the ball joints replace, I had the front sway bar bushings replaced, new front sway bar endlinks, and new coil over shock and spring installed. Car drives tight and straight. These parts have about 1,000 miles on them.
What do you think, shop screwed up and won't admit or part failure?
Anyway I can prove they screwed up?
Therein lies the danger in supplying your own parts to a mechanic. My guess, which is worthless, is that he added grease with an air grease gun and overfilled it, causing it to rupture. You'll never know, never be able to prove it. Chalk it up as a lesson learned.
Yeah, I didn't really want to do that. The lower ball joints on the car were really unsafe and I've seen plenty of Crown Vics with failed lower ball joints. I was going to do them myself with my manual C-clamp ball joint set, but I got consumed with having to take care of my elderly parents for a couple months while they recovered from pretty serious medical conditions. So I just took it into the shop as it needed to be done quickly so I could keep driving the car. Of course a black cloud follows me.
I've not heard of an air grease gun, so I've learned something new there. I just have a simple manual pump one I use at home.
At least it shouldn't be too expensive to repair...
$240. I'm not sure if that is good or bad for a single ball joint, but the ball joint part (same Moog part # to keep it matching) price from them is $55. At least it will be under warranty this time.