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.

Its happened to me too:



-J

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1991 350SDL. 230,000 miles (new motor @ 150,000). Blown head gasket

Tesla Model 3. 205,000 miles. Been to 48 states!
Past: A fleet of VW TDIs.... including a V10,a Dieselgate Passat, and 2 ECOdiesels.
2014 Cadillac ELR
2013 Fiat 500E.

I have actually had a ball-joint need replacing after less than a week after being fitted by a good garage (whole wishbone on late ones not just the joint- now that is bad engineering!), the boot just split for no discernible reason so had to be replaced...no I don't recall what it said "on the packaging" but the garage owner (German car specialists for twenty years plus ) said it was a brand he had used regularly without any issues, but 'stuff happens' as they say.

Still trying to find a pictorial on how to actually test these joints if anyone has one?

cheers!

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cheers!!

I did a search for all ball joint failures on different brands and something stuck me as strange. All the failures were on the lower right hand joint!
I wonder what conditions the right wheel see that the left does not.

I checked my 1999 Benz and it is designed the right way with the ball in compression. The same is true for the VW Jetta.

Why is it that this type of failure has not cause enough injury to warrant some sort of action by people that are supposed to be in charge of safety on the road.
It looks like companies have silently acknowledged the problem and design cars differently now.

This is an interesting thread. I have two E300's. One has 240k and the other is around 290k. The boots look good on the ball joints and there is no noise or other operational issues. Is there any warning prior to failure? I'm thinking that cars from the dryer, no salt climates don't present as many issues like this as cars from up north.

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Jim

The car I was driving was having a bit of a memory steer problem. The joint ceased and snapped off as I was pulling into a parking spot.

-J

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1991 350SDL. 230,000 miles (new motor @ 150,000). Blown head gasket

Tesla Model 3. 205,000 miles. Been to 48 states!
Past: A fleet of VW TDIs.... including a V10,a Dieselgate Passat, and 2 ECOdiesels.
2014 Cadillac ELR
2013 Fiat 500E.

I like the "memory steer" term to describe how it felt. Not really stiff, but something a bit not normal.
I think some stiffness has to occur as the ball approaches the point of being able to separate. It's doesnt take long from "noticing something wrong" to failure.
As the ball gets closer to being able to escape the socket the pressure on the sides of the socket increase rapidly. It's a runaway situation just before failure.
If the ball was in compression (240D W210) you could probably drive for years with the ball rattling around inside the socket.

From a British forum a few months ago.

"The W124 front suspension is a dangerous design.

It suffers from "Morris minor" disease in that the lower articulating joint is in tension. Suspension ball joints should never be used in tension and should preferably never be mounted with the ball pin upwards as rain water will always eventually penetrate the joint. The W124 had both of these faults and the combination is lethal - the joint rusts away whilst full spring tension pulls it apart as the movement from road humps etc. cause it to grind to bits.

There is a M-B procedure illustrated in the manual which involves levering the joint into compression with a very long bar to check for movement. Obviously, on an old vehicle, nobody does it. Even M-B know this - procedures are no substitute for a safe design.

From a Company which allegedly prides itself on the safety of its products, this detail is a disgrace. But then, they're still producing cars for the UK market with wipers set up for LHD. Not a company I would do any business with."

Those are pretty impressive mileage numbers. On my E300 they started creaking and making a racket around 150k, so I replaced them immediatly. We don't have salt here in Seattle, but we do get tons and tons of rain, and our roads look like a minefield. I'm hoping my new Lemfoerder ball joints last longer than 30k as in the OP's example, I did replace the tie rods and steering shock too with their brand, but I've always had great luck with them in the past. Only time will tell.

I'm sorry this happened to you.

Your argument that typical ball joint orientation on a modified strut front end, which is also typically shared by Mcpherson strut front ends, is inexcusably unsafe does not square with the track record of the bazillions of vehicles on the road with like ball joint setups.

Agreed. The notion that the joint failed due to "tension" fails to consider the significant and highly variable dynamic forces to which the ball joint is subjected while driving. Likewise, blaming the Mercedes design for the failure of an unknown and presumably aftermarket part does not make for a well-grounded argument.

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When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.

Memory steer....exactly! I was going round and round trying to figure out why my 91 300D, less than 100K miles, would not self center. All kinds of suggestions: alignment, steering damper, etc... Turned out to be ball joints, even though there was none of the typical creaking and even though, upon visual inspection, they looked fine.

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14 E250 Bluetec "Sinclair", Palladium Silver on Black, 153k miles
06 E320 CDI "Rutherford", Black on Tan, 171k mi, Stage 1 tune, tuned TCU
91 300D "Otis", Smoke Silver, 142k mi, wastegate conversion

19 Honda CR-V EX 61k mi
Fourteen other MB's owned and sold
1961 Very Tolerant Wife

Probably a Uro part in action.

They don't last a year.

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Cheers!
Scott McPhee

1987 300D

I called the place were I bought the part and they said they sell Visa an Moog parts. They don't normally have the Moog in stock so I probably purchased the Visa

If you look for failed ball joints on the net you will find plenty of them from all makers and the common denominator is that they are mostly on the right side and are used in tension.