How hard is this to do? Replacing the ball joints and control arms on a 1999 Explorer? Upper. I had my Explorer in for inspection at the local dealer. I had some weird noises coming from the wheels. Asked them to check it out. Has 56,000 miles on it. Get a call later that morning..... Approx. $950.00+ to fix the upper ball joints and control arms as well as the rear sway bars???? What! Is this right? Well I told them to forget it. Was charged 39.00 for labor for them to look at it for the part of the inspection they had done. It obviously did not pass with the ball joints, and then 7.00 for the loaner car. I took it to my local mechanic who agreed with one of the ball joint being replaced but could not find anything wrong with the rear sway bars?? Should I be having these problems at 56,000 miles. We don't drive it to hard? Is that the going price to fix the above items?? Your help would be appreciated!

Thanks

 

I just replaced my upper ball-joints a few weeks ago on my '97. Ford in their efforts to conserve money incorporated the "non-serviceable" upper ball joints into the upper control arms. The control arm has to be replaced when the Ford upper ball joint is replaced beginning with the '95 model year. It took me about 1/2 a day to do both sides and went pretty easily. A good set of air tools and the right size pickle fork made the job go pretty smoothly. I paid about $250-$270 for both upper ball joint/control arms. I used Moog that I got from Car Quest Auto Parts.

The uppers went much easier than the lower ball joints that I replaced six months ago. I spent about 1 1/2 days doing them since I didn't have all the proper tools and had to imrovise.

If you are mechanically inclined, have the right tools and take your time the upper ball joints are pretty easy on '95 and up explorers. You'll likely need an alignment afterwards so factor that cost in to your repair costs. The only bolt that really affects your alignment is a bolt on the passenger side that controls how far forward or backwards the passenger tire sits in relation to the driver's side. I marked my bolt and eye-balled the other two bolts that hold the two control arm parts together and did my best to get everything back exactly as it came out. When I took it to get it aligned, the shop found nothing wrong with my alignment and was well within factory specifications (still cost me $60 though since they did all of the work for an alignment except make adjustments).