W211 "HD" Ball Joints
 

Found some play in the drivers side lower ball joint on my '06 CDI. I'm also due for a pair of front struts. So I was going to replace lower ball joints on both sides on the car when I take the front end apart and get an alignment.

Looking online there is the Lemforder OEM version for around $26. There is also a "heavy duty" Meyle version for $40. I generally would prefer Lemforder over Meyle. Is there any good reason to go to the "HD" ones? I don't know what makes one ball joint heavier duty than another. The $28 difference for the pair is hardly a big deal, so if I really should do "HD" I am happy to spend the extra bucks, but I was curious if anyone could shed any light on this.

Meyle is garbage, HD or not. Lemfoerder or Genuine MB Only.

Also verify your front control arm bushings too, they are typically cracked and done for around 100k.

That was sort of my opinion but I was waiting for someone else to validate it haha.

The front control arms aren't all that expensive, I'm debating just doing them too since they also have a ball joint in them. I need to jack the car up this weekend just to make sure the PO didn't do some full front end rebuild I didn't know about or something before I buy all the parts.

I, OTOH, have only had good experience with Meyle parts. I used their ball joint for one side of my W163 and was going to compare to the Lemfoerder on the other side, but I dumped the gas guzzler before either was a problem again.

Here is their brochure on your ball joint: http://www.meyle.com/fileadmin/user_upload/service/downloads/meyle-hd-produktinformationen/mercedes/en_pl_zh/LL_16-2008_en.pdf

I had always heard bad about Meyle and never purchased any of their parts (I always go with Lemfoerder, Corteco, OEM, or similar) but I bought a car that had tons of aftermarket parts on all about 3 years old now. Most were URO and every single one of those had basically failed. The Meyle bits were still good and I decided not to replace them.