2002 Grand Marq ball joints--usually break??

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Kaboomba

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My grandfather has a 2002 Mercury Grand Marquis which he bought new and which now has ~100K. A few months ago he noticed an occasional clunk, and, thinking it was a ball joint, took it to the dealership and asked them to inspect the front end. They did, and told him nothing was wrong. He went to another dealership, got the same story, then went to the first dealership a month later and got the same story again (this time they drove it).

One day he was driving at 30mph and the passenger side ball joint suddenly broke.

The car was towed to the dealership, where they replaced the ball joint. A couple of weeks later he started hearing the clunk again, and went to the dealership and had the BJ replaced again.

Now, he is hearing the same clunk, and also hears a banjo-twang sound that seems to come from the spring as something rubs it.

What the heck is going on with this car? I'm assuming it needs a new control arm/bushings/ball-joint package.
 
Seems very strange. It's not exactly a common issue, either.
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Did grandpa hit something that might have bent something on the suspension causing something to be stressed at that location.

One of our famous WI potholes comes to mind or something dead laying in the road.
 
That was my thought, too, but of all people he would be the first one to know if and exactly when he did it. He's been babying his Mercurys since 1952.

He lives in central IA--the roads are generally quite good.

He suspects that the guys at the dealership drove the car on the demo course before he picked it up (he special-ordered).

But is the 2002 CV/GM chassis known for this kind of sensitivity?
 
Possible they are not checking the car out right. Like the joints tighten when the car is hanging from the lift but are shot at ride height. Have heard the best test is to lift the tire a couple inches off the ground then get a long board under there and pry up.
 
He didn't run over anything. He recently had a shoulder and back injury that would have told him all about it in no uncertain terms if he ran over something bad enough to damage a ball joint.

He also said that when he went to pick up the car, the sales guy hopped in and told him to take it on the demo area, which has a series of speed bumps for demonstrating smoothness (I guess). The guy told him to "try taking it faster"--and my grandpa told him "I would never do that!". Weird. Ever heard of that?
 
What type of ball joint did they put in to replace it? Some aftermarket "white box" ball joints are awful, but I still can't see it failing that fast. If he replaces it again, I'd install Moogs. A buddy of mine has a '98 Vic, and he had some ball joint issue with less than 100K miles. He replaced all four with Moogs and no problems since.

Is this an upper or lower ball joint?
 
Lower ball joint

Ball seperated

I have not seen the pictures (yep, grandpa got pics)

It's conceivable that the dealership installed white box BJ's instead of the expensive OE...

What needs to be done to ensure that this BJ seperation never happens again?

eljefino: yep, I gotcha--I had to read up on the suspension and see that the spring acts on the lower A-arm to place the BJ in tension and thus suspend the car on the spindle. But then the thin gto do would be to use a little bottle jack to lift the A-arm and see if the ball would move in its socket.
 
Can you elaborate on the other Panther BJ failures?

What's the status of the BJ's on your '04? But this is probably restricted to 98-02, correct?

K
 
The front suspension was competently redesigned for 2003. I have not heard of similar failures. Time will tell. On CrownVic.Net, user BigJon had his 2000 fail in his driveway. Ill see if I can find the thread.
 
Wow, it looks like that BJ failure is actually fairly common.

I'm going to tell my grandpa to replace the entire A-arm assembly (which includes all bushings and ball joint) on the side that failed while he was driving, and the ball joint on the other side. All with MOOG parts.

Thanks for all the great insight on this.
 
My parents own a 2000 Grand Marquis LS which they purchased new. The car now only has about 65,000 miles on it. I don't recall if the car ever ate up ball joints but I can tell you that the pitman arm and idler arm both already went bad and needed to be replaced with about 30,000 miles on the clock. Also the pitman arm wore out for the 2nd time recently. And I do recall that the pitman arm only really showed any play in it when the car was on the ground/suspension loaded. Just wanted to post that since that can be another source of the odd clunking noise.

Ed B.
 
Originally Posted By: SuperEd73
My parents own a 2000 Grand Marquis LS which they purchased new. The car now only has about 65,000 miles on it. I don't recall if the car ever ate up ball joints but I can tell you that the pitman arm and idler arm both already went bad and needed to be replaced with about 30,000 miles on the clock. Also the pitman arm wore out for the 2nd time recently. And I do recall that the pitman arm only really showed any play in it when the car was on the ground/suspension loaded. Just wanted to post that since that can be another source of the odd clunking noise.

Ed B.




The pitman arm on my Townie gave up the ghost at 315,000Km. I replaced it with Moog part. What did you guys use?
 
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