[s-cars] UrS and 200 ball joint failures

[mike claire]

Good deal, that answers it for me.  No clunks and tight front-end = don't
worry about it.  I'll have somebody I trust give the pinch bolts a good look
the next time it's in.

On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 9:55 AM, Peter Schulz <pcschulz at comcast.net> wrote:

> I second what Fred said about the pinch bolts..happened to my wife in our
> green S6 and luckily it was in a parking lot.
> If you purchase your car used, and have a mysterious clunk in the front end
> that you can't resolve despite checking everything and replacing most wear
> items save the control arms, don't just check the torque on the pinch
> bolt...remove it and make sure its not a: the wrong type of bolt, hardness
> unknown, b: cross threaded, so you "think" it's tight...
>
>
>
> At 08:36 AM 8/12/2008 -0400, Fred Munro wrote:
>
>> Mike;
>>
>> IMO the biggest potential issue with the UrS ball joint is people reusing
>> the pinch bolt (always replace it) and with people wedging something in
>> the
>> slot to pry it open to release the ball joint. The latter destroys the
>> strut, as it will never properly clamp the ball joint again.
>> Unfortunately,
>> you don't know whether that has been done to your car by a
>> less-than-competent tech sometime in the past unless you carefully inspect
>> the slot for tool marks. I do recall a lister who had a newly-installed
>> ball
>> joint pop out and eventually found tool marks in the slot on the strut. If
>> the ball joint itself is not loose, I don't think you have to worry about
>> failure on either the TRW or the Meyle arms. My experience with the Meyle
>> arms is that they wear faster - the ones I installed were shot after one
>> year. The local Audi tech told me TRW makes the OEM arms, and that's what
>> I
>> used to replace the Meyles. They are still good after 4 years.
>>
>> Sounds like a bad scene, Mike. Glad to see that you helped out, but that
>> has
>> an emotional cost and I hope it passes quickly for you. Not helping out
>> has
>> a higher cost, but that's paid in the future over the longer term.
>>
>> As for Chrysler vehicles, I owned a '66 Dodge van and my wife's first car
>> was a '74 Scamp that she drove for 17 years. Both were great vehicles, but
>> Chrysler started going downhill in the '80s and the stuff they make now is
>> CRAP. Thanks for the heads-up on the Liberty; I haven't been paying much
>> attention since I don't plan on owning anything made by Chrysler.
>>
>>
>> HTH
>>
>> Fred Munro
>> '97 S6
>>
>