My turn for ball joint failure

Castaway

Castaway

New member
So a little over a week ago I am backing into a parking space at my apartment after a full day of Engineering class followed by work. As I am easing back I hear this clunk and the passenger side of my '96 T4R drops. Immediately stood on the brakes, threw the truck in park, and set the parking brake. Got out and this is what greeted me when I got around to the passenger side.

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I got really lucky that it didn't fail as I was driving, because the road I have to drive from School to my apartment is not very level and has no shoulders. So I probably would have rolled the T4R if I had been on that road.

Now, all of the shops in town close at 5:30pm and I didn't finish assessing the damage until 5:35pm, so no chance of getting it in the shop that night. Since there are a couple of real yahoos that live in the same apartment complex and my truck is not actually all the way in the parking space. So, when my roommate got home I bummed a ride to the store to get a couple of cones and some reflective tape in a effort to make my truck more visible.

Next day I had class until noon so I wasn't able to call AAA for a wrecker until after I got out of class. One and a half hours later the wrecker shows up, driver gets out, takes one look at the truck. Looks at me and says "They didn't tell me it was a broken ball joint." I replied "I don't know why not, I told them it was a broken ball joint." His reply was "Well, my truck can't tow a vehicle with a broken ball joint, I don't have the equipment."

So he left. AAA called back about 30 minutes later to tell me another tow truck was on it's way. Tow truck arrives, driver gets out and says "They didn't tell me it was a broken ball joint." My reply was "Well I told them it was a broken ball joint, and you're the second person they haven't told." Luckily he had a flatbed so we were able to load it and get it to the shop, after about an hour or two of lining up the T4R and the tow truck.

Shop response:
Replace ball joints
Replace CV Axles (broke when the ball joint failed)
Replace tie rods (bent when ball joint failed)
Replace rack & pinion bushings (looks like you tear these up replacing the tie rods)
Replace struts (apparently the struts were installed by Toyota at the factory. aka: Original parts. wow)
Est. Cost: about $2400

I'll have to see how close the estimate was to actual cost.
 

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That sucks man. It's really good that you weren't doing 60 down the interstate or something.

Do you have no tools or access to a friends shop to do it yourself?

Prices from dealership....
Lower Ball Joints: $150/piece
CV Axles: $100/piece
Inner Tie Rods: $80/piece
Outer Tie Rods: $180/piece
Rack & Pinion Bushings: $25 kit
Struts: up to you

Est. Cost: Under $1500 depending on your front struts and if you do by yourself. That's both sides. Cut it in half for only one side.


Sure beats the hell out of $2400. If you claim it under insurance though you might just have to pay a deductible. But then it goes on the insurance and you pay for it in the long run anyways.
 
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You're right, I'm really glad it didn't break at 60mph, that would not have ended good at all.

Nope, don't have the tools (might at home, 4 hours away), don't know anyone up here that has a shop/tools that I could use, and I don't know how to do the repairs anyway.
Plus despite being a college town, you have to have a car to survive for any length of time (Even the international students buy cars even though they are only here for a "short" time).
My preference would have been to do it myself, but with nowhere to do it, not knowing how to do it, and no alternate transportation available I didn't have much choice.

Can't claim it on insurance. Have Mississippi minimum insurance on the truck so basically covers damage in a wreck with a police report and for the most part only for the other person's vehicle since the blue book value for the truck is so low.
 
Castaway said:
Nope, don't have the tools (might at home, 4 hours away),
Click to expand...

For the price difference and for how easy it is to fix most of that... it would be worth heading to sears, or even harbor freight for that matter, and just buying a second set of tools. Even cheap tools that you could then just store in the rig would be worth it. And any of the specialty tools you will need, like the ball joint removal tool / pickle fork can be rented from Oreilly's/Autzone/etc.

1000 bucks is a lot of beer money my friend, and I know us engineers love to pound beer like crazy
 
I agree with rideexileex. That's a steep quote, especially for a broke college student (I assume). It's a relatively easy job, at least to get a new LBJ in there for now.

Sorry to see the poor rig down and out. :(
 
I would have considered going to harbor freight or sears for tools and doing it myself, except this is the boondocks.

Don't ask me how you can have a University somewhere for over 100 years and still have no stores. To buy anything other than food and everyday items I've got to drive 2 hours to Meridian, Tuscaloosa, or Tupelo. Kinda difficult when you don't have transport, and way far out of the way for all of my friends.

It is definitely a steep quote for a broke college student (and I am broke, paying my own way through school). Good thing I have a second job, unfortunately now I won't have any folding money (the purpose for the second job).

At this point it is a moot point though, I had the shop fix it because it is my only transport and I have to have it. Boy, this is going to hurt the wallet for a long while.
 
Always curious to hear how many miles are on it? I have a '96 as well..pushing 200k. OEM LBJs on order...among way too many other things.

As far as LBJ failures go....you got suuuuuuuper lucky. Still sucks though.
 
I did get super lucky.

I bought the truck with about 225,000 on the clock I had about 240,000 when the ball joint broke.
 
Wow, like mentioned above I'm very glad this didn't happen to you going 70 down the freeway.

Tundra had the balljoint give out while at the dealership

lowerballjointfailure.jpg~original



Now imagine at 70mph....
 
What's your major? Mechanical engineering? This should be a nice project for you for the weekend.

Trust me, I had a friend doing civil engineering who don't know how to replace the dome light in his 96 Camry.

Grab some tools and a 6 pack! good luck.
 
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is there any way to inspect the LBJ to predict when such a failure may happen and conduct any preventive maintenance beforehand, or do these LBJ failures simply strike randomly out of the blue with no warning whatsoever?

if it is possible to inspect, then what should one look for?
 
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Get a local indy shop to do it for cheap. Lucky it failed pretty benignly.


nissanh said:
What's your major? Mechanical engineering? This should be a nice project for you for the weekend.

Trust me, I had a friend doing civil engineering who don't know how to replace the dome light in his 96 Camry.
Click to expand...

You study civil engineering when you cant hack it in other disciplines. =}
 
nissanh said:
What's your major? Mechanical engineering? This should be a nice project for you for the weekend.

Trust me, I had a friend doing civil engineering who don't know how to replace the dome light in his 96 Camry.

Grab some tools and a 6 pack! good luck.
Click to expand...

I'm actually majoring in Industrial and Systems Engineering, but I can understand the civil not being able to change the dome light. I had one civil engineering student tell me that if it didn't require heavy equipment to build/work on he didn't need to know how to do it when I asked him how come he couldn't do some simple little repair at his apartment (the repair was so inconsequential I've forgotten what it was)
 
Shop called to tell me they were finished. Final cost was just a touch under $2200. First time I've ever had a repair cost less than the estimate, but I'm not complaining.

It's still going to strain my finances a lot, just not quite as much as I was expecting. Here's hoping nothing else breaks
 
hrt4me said:
is there any way to inspect the LBJ to predict when such a failure may happen and conduct any preventive maintenance beforehand, or do these LBJ failures simply strike randomly out of the blue with no warning whatsoever?

if it is possible to inspect, then what should one look for?
Click to expand...

I'm curious about this as well, typically with my other cars it's been easy to just shake the wheel with it jacked up off the ground and see play in the ball joints, but I've heard our 3rd gens were bad for this? I'm considering replacing mine now since I just got my 99 3 weeks ago and don't know the condition of the chassis parts yet.
 
This really worries me even though when I got my truck 3 months ago with 215k miles the state inspection showed no movement at all in the bj's (.000), but I have no maintenace records to know if they've been done before.

Has anyone had them fail after having a recent state safety inspection showing they're good (zero movement)?
 
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