First non-maintenance repair on the Expedition

[Rocko1]

Originally Posted By: MNgopher
In practice, I've had no issues with quality sealed U-joints. They can and do regularly last a very long time - well over 150,000 miles in my case.

As is the case with everything, there are good units and bad units - both sealed and serviceable.


That is true. IME I have seen longer life out of serviceable units when a high quality grease is used.

 

[SteveSRT8]

exranger06 is spot on. Computers allow exact modeling so that lifespan can be accurately estimated. Planned obsolescence is real.

And the only reason they make things cheaper is that we all clamor for lower prices!

 

[exranger06]

Originally Posted By: Rocko1
Originally Posted By: exranger06


EVERY manufactured product (not just cars) has a designed life expectancy, and there's nothing wrong with that. But to suggest an automaker knowingly uses inferior parts as some conspiracy to make their vehicles break sooner than usual is ridiculous and asinine.

What is usual? What is your acceptable time frame? The costs would increase? Only becuase you are not buying cars as frequently, material and labor have gone down, not up. The [censored] they feed you is that a real quality item will just be too expensive, so take this mediocre product and the world swallows it. If you think they give a rats [censored] about you research the A pillar debacle Ford had with rollover crashes.

Do you think the dealerships service department is only sustaining itself on @29.99 oil changes?

Who said anything about mediocre? I said they design cars for 17 years/175k miles, which as I said, is a perfectly reasonable lifespan. There's no point in designing them to last any longer.

 

[steve20]

my recollection is the zerks were eliminated to make the joint stronger---truth or folklore?

 

[yonyon]

Originally Posted By: steve20
my recollection is the zerks were eliminated to make the joint stronger---truth or folklore?


We're talking single cardan u-joints here, not ball joints. Cross and roller. The cross generally won't break until at least one roller (of four) is just plain missing for a while even with that one little hole drilled for the grease fitting. Even if there were some particular setup where strength of the cross were an issue, using one roller with a hole for a zerk (these are easier to grease as well) would eliminate the problem. It isn't truth or folklore. It's bunk.

Of course, eliminating the zerk pretty much does eliminate the problem of flushing out premium grease with the $1.50/tube chassis lube once and then failing to ever service it again.

 

[mechanicx]

Originally Posted By: steve20
my recollection is the zerks were eliminated to make the joint stronger---truth or folklore?


I've heard that before at one time too but am not sure of the validity. I think the reason for the change to sealed is that sealed gives a fairly long life with no maintenance, and a greasable part while having the potential for longer life will not last as long as a sealed if it's not regularly and properly serviced.

 

[SteveSRT8]

^^^Exactly. They actually fill them with extremely nice grease and the way a U joint spins keeps it in place.

As long as they stay dry they last 200k plus in our fleet trucks, some even longer.

And i also have never heard of good high quality grease ever hurting anything. Maybe a ridiculously over powered air driven gun could damage a joint, but it seems far fetched.