The truck had developed a shimmy in the front end over a few months and I had an alignment done and the tires checked to to see if I could get the shimmy out. The alignment helped a little but it still was shimmying somewhat. I took it to a near by Dodge/Chrysler dealer and had them look at it. They told me that all 4 of the ball joints were bad and although the truck was still derivable the joints needed to be replaced. I was planning on buying a new camper so I decided to get the joints replaced. It ended up costing me $1413.80 to get those joints replaced. They informed me that 2 of the joints would have to come from NAPA because Chrysler no longer had them. I told them when I took it back for the repair that I wanted all 4 of those joints to come from NAPA because any that Chrysler had in stock would just be the same junk left over from a production run and would have the same problems as the ones in my truck. They agreed. I could see maybe one bad ball joint at 59,000 miles but how in the world can you possibly have all 4 joints go bad at the same time? This truck has never been abused or used off road anywhere. The problem seems to be with some kind of plastic covering on the joints that was supposed to keep permanent grease around the joints and that plastic was missing on all 4 joints. To me, that is an engineering problem and Chrysler should be paying for that defect - not me.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
The truck had developed a shimmy in the front end over a few months and I had an alignment done and the tires checked to to see if I could get the shimmy out. The alignment helped a little but it still was shimmying somewhat. I took it to a near by Dodge/Chrysler dealer and had them look at it. They told me that all 4 of the ball joints were bad and although the truck was still derivable the joints needed to be replaced. I was planning on buying a new camper so I decided to get the joints replaced. It ended up costing me $1413.80 to get those joints replaced. They informed me that 2 of the joints would have to come from NAPA because Chrysler no longer had them. I told them when I took it back for the repair that I wanted all 4 of those joints to come from NAPA because any that Chrysler had in stock would just be the same junk left over from a production run and would have the same problems as the ones in my truck. They agreed. I could see maybe one bad ball joint at 59,000 miles but how in the world can you possibly have all 4 joints go bad at the same time? This truck has never been abused or used off road anywhere. The problem seems to be with some kind of plastic covering on the joints that was supposed to keep permanent grease around the joints and that plastic was missing on all 4 joints. To me, that is an engineering problem and Chrysler should be paying for that defect - not me.
- peachr, King, NC, US