Honda FR-V front ball joints MOT fail
Discussion
Our FR-V runabout just failed its MOT on excessive play in front ball joints.
No problem I thought - just replace the ball joints. However the MOT garage tell me the only way to do this is to replace the entire lower wishbone (parts £200 a side, needs both), “because Honda don’t sell the ball joints alone”
One swift surf over to Euro Car Parts and they have the joints at 15 quid each. Surely I just need someone to press them out/in? I’ve had a look online, loads of YouTube vids on how to do it, seems a fairly low level spannering job, provided all the rusty bolts play ball with a good soak in WD40. I just don’t have the time to DIY it at the moment.
My question is, is this garage trying to have me over? It’s my wife’s car, and I got the distinct feeling they were trying to pull the wool. I went in to collect it and they were very stand offish when I started asking some basic questions, i.e. “can you not just get a splitter or press in there and press them out? “ I really don’t see the need to replace an otherwise perfectly good suspension wishbone.
Any Honda techs able to advise on this? I’ve looked at some pattern wishbones which come without a ball joint, so it must be possible to press them in?
No problem I thought - just replace the ball joints. However the MOT garage tell me the only way to do this is to replace the entire lower wishbone (parts £200 a side, needs both), “because Honda don’t sell the ball joints alone”
One swift surf over to Euro Car Parts and they have the joints at 15 quid each. Surely I just need someone to press them out/in? I’ve had a look online, loads of YouTube vids on how to do it, seems a fairly low level spannering job, provided all the rusty bolts play ball with a good soak in WD40. I just don’t have the time to DIY it at the moment.
My question is, is this garage trying to have me over? It’s my wife’s car, and I got the distinct feeling they were trying to pull the wool. I went in to collect it and they were very stand offish when I started asking some basic questions, i.e. “can you not just get a splitter or press in there and press them out? “ I really don’t see the need to replace an otherwise perfectly good suspension wishbone.
Any Honda techs able to advise on this? I’ve looked at some pattern wishbones which come without a ball joint, so it must be possible to press them in?
EP3's are the same, Honda will only sell you the full hub/knuckle with BJ already pressed in.
I replaced them on mine using a heavy duty vice to press them in with a ring/spacer I devised to make the make process easy. Hub must come off the car.
Whatever you do, Avoid OCAP ball joints, both boots perished and split with 6months and had to replace them with MOOG ones, Those seem good quality.
Unless front arms are buggered bush wise that would be the reason to replace, can be split from BJ with a splitter.
I replaced them on mine using a heavy duty vice to press them in with a ring/spacer I devised to make the make process easy. Hub must come off the car.
Whatever you do, Avoid OCAP ball joints, both boots perished and split with 6months and had to replace them with MOOG ones, Those seem good quality.
Unless front arms are buggered bush wise that would be the reason to replace, can be split from BJ with a splitter.
Edited by krismccloy on Tuesday 26th June 12:22
Cheers for the responses all.
I picked up a pair of ball joints from Euro Car Parts this morning 30 quid, but with an online code reduced to 20!
As I was leaving, I stopped into a local indy garage across the road, it's on an old skool 1960's industrial estate, explained the predicament, they said "no probs, we've done it before, hub has to come off but not a big deal, we can do it for you Monday". Happy to do it with my supplied parts - I know some garages are funny about this, but given that they'd just actually seen me walk out of Euro, probably exactly where they go for spares, no issue with it.
I got home, Googled said garage, myriad 5-star reviews of how it's run by two decent blokes who understand bangernomics.
Am gonna give them a whirl. As we speak, I'm on a parts saving of 380 quid, so even if there's a bit more labour involved in pressing them out I'm going to be saving.
Will update when done. These are cracking family cars but ut's very hard to get hold of a workshop manual as I think the target market was school run mums who just take them to get fixed at a main dealer by default.
I picked up a pair of ball joints from Euro Car Parts this morning 30 quid, but with an online code reduced to 20!
As I was leaving, I stopped into a local indy garage across the road, it's on an old skool 1960's industrial estate, explained the predicament, they said "no probs, we've done it before, hub has to come off but not a big deal, we can do it for you Monday". Happy to do it with my supplied parts - I know some garages are funny about this, but given that they'd just actually seen me walk out of Euro, probably exactly where they go for spares, no issue with it.
I got home, Googled said garage, myriad 5-star reviews of how it's run by two decent blokes who understand bangernomics.
Am gonna give them a whirl. As we speak, I'm on a parts saving of 380 quid, so even if there's a bit more labour involved in pressing them out I'm going to be saving.
Will update when done. These are cracking family cars but ut's very hard to get hold of a workshop manual as I think the target market was school run mums who just take them to get fixed at a main dealer by default.
I have one of these too. And it's just passed the MOT with flying colours. The back suspension is quite knocky and the wheels are sticking out negative camber wise. This is a common problem with the FR-V's and will cause all sorts of issues on front and back too. Personally I'm going to get a polyurethene kit and do the lot next summer... providing I can get the injectors sorted.
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