Last week the front lower right ball joint on my 1991 300D popped out of the socket and caused the car to slide to the right side of the road. Not fun and it could have caused serious injuries.

The ball was replaced about 30,000 miles ago. I used a part from same place that I alway buy from. I don't have the receipt so I don't know what brand it was that I used.

There was very little warning like you would normally get from a ball failing. No noise or groans when driving the car. I just started to notice that it was starting to feel a bit tight, after making a turn it would require a little nudge to get the car straight. I was going to look for a problem when I got home. I have had this happen on the 240D and it was the idle arm for the tie rods. I had no real reason to be suspicious of a catastrophic failure because when the other joints failed at 250,000 miles they were very obviously tight and made noise.

As much as I like Mercedes cars and their attention to safety I find this design where the ball is inverted and under tension is inexcusable. They must have forgotten what they knew when they designed the older cars.

So always use MB parts and don't assume that these cars don't have serious design issues.