Ball joint recall

[mijohnst]

Glad to find this forum. I've been browsing for the past few hours and there is a ton of great information here.

I'd like to ask some of you your opinion about an issue I'm having on my 2006 with the 5.9L. I bought the truck a little over two years ago. After I bought it I was looking for what recalls were in affect and found that the ball joints needed to be inspected for possible replaced. The truck had a really bad death wobble until I had the front tries aligned. I took it to my closest dealership and some guy behind the counter went outside took a VISUAL look and said, "Nope, they look good." and that was that.

Fast forward to this past weekend...I took my truck in for tires and they tell my ball joints are bad. I know it's been 2 years but I'm kind of pissed that this is coming up. The tire people had the tires off for the inspection while the Dodge inspection guy just looked behind the tire. I remember thinking, "You can check that without taking the tire off?" I don't drive this truck but about 5 miles to work, I don't pull any heavy equipment or take it off-road. I'm almost wanting to go back to the dealership and make a bug fuss over this. Any thoughts on what any of you would do?

 

[Ramnewbie]

I know this makes you mad, been there done that, but at this point I don't think there's much you can do other than replace you're ball joints. A 12 year old truck even with low mileage they will probably pass it off as normal wear and tear.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

 

[mijohnst]

Thanks for the reply Ramnewbie... I was afraid this might be the case. I'm kicking myself for not speaking up at the time I thought it was odd. Unfortunately the place I took it was more interested in fixing all the other things they thought was wrong with my truck that I would have had to pay for. :/

 

[fastf]

I have owned several Dodge aka Ram trucks over the years.They put sealed ball joints so you cannot keep them greased well after or around a hundred thousand miles or more the rubber boot dries out and you cannot grease them no fitting something as cheap and as simple as that can be a head ache down the road.The thing about car manufactures they cant make money off selling cars they sell parts too.The sales man tells you right when you leave the lot to hurry back its like he knows.

 

[KansasBob]

I haven't heard anything about a ball joint recall? I got letters for the air bags so I don't know. My truck is very low mileage for an 05, and that was the first thing I noticed when I got it 2 years ago with 35K on it. The rubbers had rotted off the lower ball joints. I knew they would take on water especially since they were so exposed.

Fast forward to this summer I had procrastinated until the joints were starting to "creak" badly.......... completely rusted inside. I had to go somewhere, and didn't have time to replace them so I drilled the top of the oem ball joint, and installed a zerk. Worked Perfect! Ball joint freed up, and the creak was gone. After my trip I changed them out with Moog problem solvers. I doubt there are very many 3rd gen Ram's with OEM lower ball joints still in them, but they Can be made so they can be greased. I did the same thing to my upper joints, and the rubber is still good on them.
One hint: You will need a 90 degree air drill to get in there and drill the hole for the zerk in the bottom joints. Be sure and get a zerk with a tapered starter thread........ the chineese ones at true value probably won't work. The top ones were easy, and a regular drill worked fine.

 

[BWL]

I thought the ball joint recall was on the mopar ball joints. Not the oem ones so it only applied if you'd had them replaced and used mopar parts. It's been a while since I had my 06 3500 diesel, but I seem to recall that being the case. I had moog ones in there by the time I heard about it.