LCA Upper Ball Joint Issues (maybe?)
 

Hey all, I felt like my car's alignment was severely out of whack a few days ago, so I ran to my alignment guy, had him check everything, and top it off with an alignment. He said the issue was the upper ball joint on my driver's side control arm being very loose.

Kinda weird to me since I've never even touched that, but my car is on coilovers. There was enough play to move the control arm around, which resulted in my car wanting to drift side to side in a very unpredictable manner. He ended up tightening it and doing the alignment, however not even 5 miles after having driven the car off the shop, everything went back to how it was... I've still got the same vibration, steering issue, and my car's making some gnarly noises. I've refrained from driving it as much as possible, but this is clearly something that needs to get fixed ASAP.

Anybody else have an issue like this before? If so, is the ball joint really the issue?


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I wouldn't drive it at all!
Did you hit anything recently? Pothole? Curb?

I do recall hitting a pothole on Monday, the day that the issue started. However, it was on the passenger side and the side affected is undoubtedly the front driver's side :(


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Which end of the car was he referring to? There's no upper ball joint in the front suspension, just a lower. Could be the ball joint in front lower control arm if it's definitely at the front? Only upper option at the front would be the upper mount for the strut.

Front driver's side from what he told me, also seems to be where all the noise is coming from. Car wants to pull right when braking and wheel has to be tilted very slightly left to go straight.


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The front suspension has lower control arms...since it's a strut suspension the "upper ball joint" would be at the topmount or camber plate. What exactly did he tighten? The lower control arm should never have play.

Pop the hood and post a pic of your left vs right camber plates.

- Andrew

Here's the right plate...

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...6b225b7479.jpg

...and the left one

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...2fc995fb48.jpg



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Well they look fine at least.

My next guess would be a loose camber bolt on the lower strut mount. Then maybe busted tie rod. After that, maybe completely fubared lower control arm.

- Andrew

Thanks Andrew, I'm gonna look a bit further into it once I'm back home.


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Update: control arm seems fine (lol fubared), camber bolts seem fine, tie rods are fine. I checked everything for play and couldn't find a thing except a ball joint that had a little bit of grease coming out of it, but it seemed fine upon further inspection.


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Park the car and put the handbrake (e-brake) on firmly. Grab the front wheel that you suspect has the issue and try to turn it as if to rock the car backwards and forwards. The grab the top of the wheel and push and pull on it hard. Does the wheel move around or make any clunking noises?

Just tried this, no noise or movement whatsoever... I'm stumped as to what it could be. :/


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This is indeed baffling. If it happen after hitting the pot hole then oviously something is damaged but just what that is is the question. Have you checked the steering rack for damage? Long shot but possible.

It's very weird, I would've thought for sure it was something that was loose, since that's what it felt like... nope. Checked everything I could. Control arm was rock solid, no play on any suspension components. I do tend to be a little paranoid of my car and always feel like something's off lol, but this time it was blatantly obvious. Gonna keep fiddling with it tomorrow and check the steering rack.


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An alignment shop is in order.
Put the car up on a two post take the wheels off and us a bar to see if the crash bolt is moving under load , a simple shake will not do it .
If the left wheel has to go point out to go straight, you have an alignment problem. If you want to do a quick check, there is a method using bars and string that we used to use at the track before lasers. Look it up on internet or youtube.
If you hit a pot hole and the steering changed it is more than a loose nut or bolt that needs tightening.
Go to a good shop before you ruin your tires or worse need to make an evasive maneuver and the car acts unpredictably.

Rear toe link eccentric bolts need to be torqued to 76 ft-lbs, if they're slipping/slipped they could cause the lopsided steering wheel and instability while the front is perfectly fine.

Quick check is to try and change the angle without touching the rear nut, that's how I realized I hadn't tightened mine enough.

Doesn't explain the noises, but worth checking since it seems everything is fixated on the front but it came back after the technician said everything was fine up front.

:bonk:

Haven't had time yet to get under the car and look, but there's play in my rear left wheel. It's very, very slight movement of the wheel, but quite noticeable. Will update later.


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Upon very close inspection, control arm is screwed. I had to really look at it, but one of the angles wasn't matching the other arm. It looks like it got caught on or hit by something. Could a slightly bent control arm cause these issues though?


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I had a worn lower control arm ball joint , find it when i was checking on the wheel bearing . Steering pull to right or left , steering turn more than it should to get the wheel really turn .

Update: My suspension was fine, took it to a better alignment shop and they put me in spec again. Previous installer of my tires rekt the front wheel studs on both sides of the car back in September... replaced 10 wheel studs & lug nuts, crossed my tires, and the car drives fine again. New alignment shop did say my tires could have a pull, which was apparent not long after I got the alignment back in spec, but as of this week the car has lost the weird pull it had under wot.


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