will a bad ball joint make noise? 90 300E
 

My mechanic said he never heard a ball joint make a creeking sound or a moaning sound. I have read some posts and heard these sounds could be lower ball joint or control arm bushings. Anyway, these are the sounds coming from my front end after I drive a few miles. Just wondering from the experts here.

Whenever I have had bad balljoints, I would hear some creaking, but only on one side. Once the BJ got more worn, I would have extreme inside tire wear.
Other creaking was usually heard from the thrust rod mount.

Could be control arm bushings. When my ball joints were going bad, they made a clunking sound on rough roads. Then again, so did my upper strut mounts when they went bad.

Creaking and groaning on turns and/or large deflections at low speed is diagnostic for bad ball joints on these cars, especially creaking, groaning, or occasionally squealing when turning the wheels. Ditto for ball joints on just about any other car I've ever worked on.

Eventually it goes away, to be replaced with rattling or "knuckling" on rough pavement and sooner or later the suspension coming apart.

Not a bad job to replace (I need to do the other side on the 300d).

Peter

Ok thanks guys. Im sure its the ball joints, cuz it does make these sounds, but I will get a second opinion

If your mechanic never heard a creaking or moaning from a bad ball joint, then he has never heard a bad ball joint. Just my .02. But anyways, the surefire way to diagnose is to get the wheel of the side in question of the ground (by means of jacking the body of the car, the wheel should be free floating), and get a prybar and look for play at all the joints under there (at least on that side). My BJ squeeked just a little, and when I jacked it up, there wis like 3/4 inch of play in it!!! :eek: :eek: I had it replaced the same day.