Nearside front upper suspension ball joint dust cover excessively deterioted so that it no longer prevents the ingress of dirt.
Offside front upper suspension ball joint dust cover excessively deterioted so that it no longer prevents the ingress of dirt.
Nearside front lower suspension ball joint dust cover excessively deterioted so that it no longer prevents the ingress of dirt.
Offside front lower suspension ball joint dust cover excessively deterioted so that it no longer prevents the ingress of dirt.
It didn’t sound too bad, just 4 rubbers to replace but the garage insist they will have to replace the top wishbones and bottom ball joints and not just the covers, no reason given and since it didn’t fail the MOT on the actual joints but just the rubvbers I’m left wondering what they are going on about. They also claim they can’t source the parts for the top wishbones as the car is a Eunos Roadster import. I found wishbones on MX-5 parst for £199 each and the garage claim it’s 7 hours labour to change these.
All in I’m a bit dissapointed as it’s looking to cost several hundred pounds to get my MOT certificate when all it failed on are dust covers.
I’m in Northamptonshire if anyone can suggest a garage to take a look for me.
If it’s just the rubbers then that’s all you need to get replace. Give Andrew a call at Atolink he’ll sort you out for the parts. http://www.autolinkuk.co.uk
It certainly shouldn’t take seven hours to change two wishbones and two balljoints, but as stated you can just change the rubber boots all of which are available from Autolink and others. We’re lucky that we can do this, because with many cars you can’t get the boots separately. The boots can be changed with the wishbones still in the car once the balljoints are detached from the upright/hub carrier. It’s an easy enough job with a bit of ingenuity - I’ve just done it on mine. You shouldn’t even need to have the alignment reset because nothing that affects the alignment will have changed.
Eunos and UK-spec MX-5 wishbones are, of course, identical.
Mine failed erlier this year with the same thing. All parts can be very easily sourced. The final bill for me was circa £250. I understand that this is recent addition to the test and a lot of cars are failing with it. Money making scheme? No! surely not…
If it is just the dust covers you need they are available from autolink I believe for less than a tenner a time if memory serves, however the lower ball joints are available as pattern parts quite cheap, and they are the ones that seem to take a pounding, if it were me, I would change the lower ball joints and put new dust covers on the upper, this assumes the upper ball joints are ok, if not your parts bill will take a beating.
Garages often source parts from general auto factors, these offer supply ball joints and arms, for any number of makes and models of vehicles but rarely covers in my experience, specific MX5 dealers offer a more comprehensive selection
I found that the pattern lower ball joint supplied by autolink was pretty poor quality and did not fit as snugly. Sent it back and just bought dust covers and kept my 20 yr old ball joints which didn’t seem worn.
If the dust covers are perished they need replacing at the very least. Water, road salt and grit will play the very devil with the joint, it will deteriorate at an alarming rate, I have seen the whole shooting match part company with the suspension arm at alarming speeds on the road. Just what price do people place on their own safety? and more importantly the safety of others? Very little it would appear, A cheap quick MOT pass is the only consideration. I make no aplogy for this post, the attitude to safety of some people does, regrettably in many cases, leave a great deal top be desired.
I agree. I’d probably change the lower ball joints as they support the weight of the car so take more of a pounding. With the uppers, I’d just replace the boots assuming the joints still feel tight, as the alternative is replacing the entire arm.
I agree with the whole statement above, Geoff. I maintain my '5 myself and love getting dirty. I check MOT Items and non MOT items almost weekly. Safety is my main concearn and always will be. My above post was made because a very close friend of mine who owns a garage in Preston, said that “This new ball joint cover rule is sending me on holiday to Mexico this year.”. Nothing more sinister than that.
No offence intended Gary, I always get a little angry if anyone compromises safety for the sake of a few pounds. Money, to me is of little value when compared with personal injuries in car crashes and I have seen plenty of those. I well remember the suspension system of the Morris Minor, A 40, Austin Cambridge etc. where both upper and lower swivel trunnions turned in a screw thread. Fine if greased, disaster if not. It was not uncommon to find one of these cars on a corner, nose down in the road, front wheel splayed sideways, driver with the helpless and hopeless look. I have seen several crashes caused by suspension neglect. I must confess the new rules on dust covers came as a suprise to me, I thought they were always a failure, I stood corrected. Interesting that your friend is funding a holiday though, there must be a hell of a lot of perished dust boots around, or he is going on a very cheap holiday!
The testers love it, re-tests aplenty…and with most people leaving their MoT failures with the test station for repairs, the garages love it too I’d imagine. And Mazda probably. But I don’t quite understand why this is a money-making conspiracy? Don’t see how that’s logically possible, since the people making the rules (us…or rather our servants) don’t get any of that money. The test fee that goes to VOSA has remained the same throughout.
It’s a perfectly sensible ruling in a country that still uses salt on its roads…a badly split boot will be the end of an old balljoint in one winter flat, with potentially very serious consequences. So I don’t see the problem…the fact that a rule change like this has seen so many failures is just testiment to how poorly maintained most cars are…a lot of people just do the minimum to pass the MoT and that’s it. Well the bare minimum is just slightly higher now, which is a good thing for everyone I think.
It is a big fail on these now, and to be honest with the basic tools,a good DIYer can do this very easy, some of those prices for doing them is laughable, alright you can hit probloms with rusty items and units, but a garage that has all the right tools by hand shold not hit to many problems.
The boots are a fail because they are a dust cover to the knuckle joint, if the lower and track rod ends are OE units the boots can just be changed unless they have found play? the upper wishbone ball joint will be OE ,even if she has been fitted with after market units has they also use OE upper ball joints, no after market upper ball joints have been made and on the market to date.
This may help some owners, i have tried this from Royster, and is a great little tool for this.