Danderson

Their house is reportedly in Taiwan.

jhenson

To bring an old thread back to light.....


It's now been just a hair over two years ago that I replaced the front end components. The XRF balljoints worked great up until about 4 months ago. Started to get the funny tire wear again and thought hey, my 8 yr old shocks are causing this. Replaced them and no change. Checked for up/down movement of the balljoints and had none......however, I did have some in/out movement by grabbing the top and bottom of the tires.

At that point I was thinking unit bearings......they were factory units with 315k miles on them. Changed them out, to no avail. Then, outta the blue, I get a knocking from the front end while hitting bumps in the road. Balljoints are TRASHED!!!!

Called and talked to the guys at Carli about their balljoints. I was extremely hesitant about paying their price without knowing the full details about the warranty issues.....should they ever arise. I asked about fitment after removing the XRF's and was told that some have issues and some don't. Some have been able to "kind of knurl up the BJ bore with an air chisel" and make the Carli's fit with no issues......that came straight from Carli.

So.......have any of you that have made the pricey switch ran into any troubles??? I'd really appreciate any info before I get into the install. The new Carli's should arrive Tuesday morning sometime and am hoping to make the change on Friday.

Sorry for the long mess but I need to know every last detail about the do's and dont's of this deal.

DragonSlayer

I've been following this.....man, what to do? I was about to order the XRF upper ball joint / control arm assy......but now, maybe not. I'm not seeing any reason to pony up the money for them over NAPA stuff. Mine is 2wd, but doubt that matters. Mine are original with 176xxx miles, what do I do?

jhenson

I hear you man....decisions, decisions. Had I known then what I know now about the knurled body of the ball joint I never would have put them in my truck. All I can do is pull the old ones out, clean up the bore a little, and mic the I.D. of the hole and the O.D. of the BJ body. Hoping for the best at that point that everything works out. Can't afford to be without my truck.

DragonSlayer

I hear ya. I'm going to order the NAPA ones with control arm. I get a really good deal on them and they are lifetime warranty. I'll see how they do. Going to be a few weeks though. I'm changing front springs, too. My right side is 1 1/2" lower than my left side.

FastTaco

I've had my XRF's for a little over a year now. Haven't checked them but guess they're still ok. My bottom ones wouldn't press in with the knurling on them so I grinded most of it off before installing.

jhenson

I had no problems installing the XRF's......they went in pretty easy. I just hope that the knurls flattened out when I put them in and didn't remove any material from the knuckle bore.

New joints arrived yesterday......I must say, they look extremely stout!!!! Mighty fancy packaging too. I still don't see $800 in that box, but, if they hold up like they are advertised to I guess it'll be all worth it.

DragonSlayer

What brand did you order? For 800 bones......I hope they hold up....maybe even be "self-installing"!

EDR

I think jhenson probably bought the Carli ball joints, at least I had a similar reaction when I got mine.

I just had mine installed, based on recommendations from the guys on this site, with 95K on my '06.

I didn't have the time or tools to install them myself, but I found a small local shop that installed them for me. The other big company shops I went to would only install they're preferred brand of ball joints and they were going to charge me 3x the on line price for the ball joints.

By the time I added it all up and compared the total prices, I didn't pay that much extra for the Carli ball joints.

A couple of other things to consider:

The alignment shop asked if I had installed off-set ball joints, because of the issues aligning the trucks. I didn't but they were able to align it without a problem.

I also ended up having bad tie rod ends as well. Instead of installing new versions of the stock parts, I opted to replace the steering linkage with the 2008 Mopar Upgrade Kit. I bought it on line from a Dodge dealer in North Carolina for less than 1/2 of what my local dealer wanted to charge me.

Hopefully I'll have many years of trouble free service (knock on wood!).

jhenson

As stated, I did purchase the Carli joints. I was very hesitant to hit the "order" button on the website. That's a lot of money and I truely hope that they hold up for the cost.

I was going to do the install today but my buddy that owns a ball joint press was using out in the field working on some of their service trucks. Will wait till next week sometime and order an OTC 8031 kit. Amazon has a really good deal on it. I'd rent one from the parts store but if I get the truck tore down and have a problem with the press, then I'd be stuck with no way to get back to the store.......trust me, sometimes my luck IS that bad!!!!

Danderson

Dynatrac offers knurled BJ's for you guys who expanded the location with knurled pos bj's.

anonymous_1

Wow. I was ready to order XRFs, but now after that I'm not sure what the heck to do. I really don't want to pony up that much money for 4 ball joints, but my truck does have a lot of life left.

spooled05

I've got 252k on the truck now and the xrf lowers are just as tight as the day I installed them ! They are very good balljoints and recommend them to anyone

yfz450guy

any updates? i need new ball joints.

FastTaco

Got about 600 miles on mine now and the tops definitely have play. Prob need to be replaced. Tried to contact place I bought them for warranty but they never reply.