Recommendations for ball joints?

[Johnathan]

So yesterday while I was replacing my drivers side cv axle on my 97 crv, after banging the lower ball joint out of its taper and taking it off the LCA. I noticed it has enough play that I would feel uncomfortable putting it back together and driving it again, its boot is also torn.

My question is, im not sure wether to get adjustable, offset, or just regular ball joint. I had my front right upper ball joint replaced about 6 months ago, so im not sure if the left upper has to match??

Im looking at rock auto catelog and im really confused on what the best ball joints for my crv is. I plan to replace the front left upper and both lowers. Im going to remove the knuckles and the one control arm and take them to a shop to get them pressed in.

Any thoughts?

Topic

[college man]

What ever is stock to the car.

[Rob]

I would goto a autopart store have them check search your car and see what is stock , have them pull it and see if that looks like the same part is on your car… then order that part online…. I do this all the time… I just say something like I dont have the meney right now… I uselly order it off ebay as new I find rockauto to high of a price…. but something else to think about is warrenty… now you might have to replace it again and getting a ball joint is like uselly $20 now if it goes bad its under warrantry…. now if you get it on line you might have only like a 90 day warrenty and will have to ship the part back to them pay for shipping and waiting for the part to come back…. uselly ball joints and stuff under $30 I uselly get at auto part stores because its easyer and the warrenty a lot of time life term

[Johnathan]

Thanks guys.

[Dave]

One other suggestion for getting the right part: Check the part number on a legitimate retailer’s website. Better yet, check a few. Rockauto is a good place to buy stuff if you know exactly what you want. But they also list stuff as appropriate for a particular car, and it isn’t. They don’t check their parts for fit; they go by the information provided to them by their suppliers. If it’s wrong, they just say, “sorry, send it back”. And while their guarantee covers those kinds of returns, it can get time consuming, expensive (you have to pay the postage) and annoying. Anyway, get the factory part number and match it to whatever you’re buying. OEMs generally supply cross references.

[Author]

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