outer tie rods and ball joints need to be replaced

**stlnoble** · 03-04-2014, 02:37 PM

hello MY car didn't pass inspection. My ? is I have to replace the outer tie rods and ball joints. Should I be preplacing anything else? My car has 116,000 on it. thanks patrick

**Xheart** · 03-04-2014, 02:41 PM

What kind of inspection requires ball-joint replaced?
The entire front suspension needs overhaul as the mileage goes up, all that is attached to the knuckle.
A budget of $900+ would secure the OE/OEM parts.

**Steve F** · 03-04-2014, 03:44 PM

Most states have a safety inspection requirement, in NY it's annually and ball joints are one thing they check.

I recently overhauled my front end due to leaking struts and sloppy ball joint on one side. I replaced both ball joints, both control arms (bushings were shot) inner tie rod ends, sway bar links, and the top strut bearings and plates. All told it was about $800 in parts from www.fcpeuro.com. I've had real good service working with them. The improvement was dramatic, it's like driving a completely different car.

There are two ways you can go about this, replace just the parts that are worn or replace everything. I replaced everything on mine since a couple items were worn, my feeling is the rest would eventually fail before long and I didn't want to be forever chasing repairs. Pay me now or pay me later.

**stlnoble** · 03-04-2014, 06:13 PM

Steve F. that's my feeling. I don't care much to work on cars so I rather get done all at once. I have the cash now don't no if I'll have it in a year or two. Can you tell me what was the hardest part to replace? ball joint? I've been looking at NAPA parts they have a life time warranty. Any thoughts?

**surfercalavera** · 03-04-2014, 08:41 PM

I replaced almost the whole front suspension. The total damage so far is about $600-strut kit from FCP, inner&outer tie rods and ball joints from IPD-with the end links and control arms still needing replacement, but are scheduled to be replaced in the next couple of months. NOTE:it is better to do all at once and save you on alignment costs than if you spread the damage apart.

The hardest part was replacing the ball joints.. but the driver side inner tie rod was rusted really bad, it is good you are replacing it at 110K.

The car handles so much better, but I am afraid I can now feel the rear suspension needing replacement as well.

mo'money

Originally Posted by stlnoble

Steve F. that's my feeling. I don't care much to work on cars so I rather get done all at once. I have the cash now don't no if I'll have it in a year or two. Can you tell me what was the hardest part to replace? ball joint? I've been looking at NAPA parts they have a life time warranty. Any thoughts?

**sjonnie** · 03-04-2014, 09:11 PM

Originally Posted by stlnoble

I don't care much to work on cars so I rather get done all at once.

Auto Evaluators on Watson road specialize in Volvos. If you don't want to do it all yourself it'll be a lot cheaper than the dealer.

**Steve F** · 03-05-2014, 01:00 AM

Toughest part for me was the ball joints too. For some reason I had trouble getting them to go in square and they would cock to one side. The way I ended up doing it was snugging the bolts evenly then clamping the opposite side with vise grips, I repeated this over and over until the ball joint was seated. Just one turn on the bolts and snug the other side again. I bought a coil spring compressor at Harbor Freight for $70, it worked fine for the job. The rest of the job is pretty straight forward, just disassemble and reassemble. They make a special socket for the "X" nut on top of the strut but I had no problem using channel locks to remove it.

**Antherzoll** · 03-05-2014, 02:22 AM

Originally Posted by Steve F

Toughest part for me was the ball joints too. For some reason I had trouble getting them to go in square and they would cock to one side. The way I ended up doing it was snugging the bolts evenly then clamping the opposite side with vise grips, I repeated this over and over until the ball joint was seated. Just one turn on the bolts and snug the other side again.

I use a pipe with an ID large enough to fit the protective cover that came with the ball joint and longer then the stud, used the old bolts as guides and hammered it in with a 9# club turned sideways, had no issues with going in square.

**Steve F** · 03-05-2014, 07:40 AM

I hunted around my place looking for something like that but came up empty. Had to resort to the method I described, it was slow but it worked. Ideally a press with proper collars would do the job.