My annual inspection indicated they needed replaced. No problem right? I always worked on my own cars, so I bought the ball joints from Autozone and rented a puller to remove the compressed joint out of the control arm. There is enough room to do this without removing the upper control arm from the vehicle. But I could not remove the old ball joint from the control arm. After 3 hours it was getting dark so I put it all back together and gave up. I made some phone calls and was told the whole control arm must be replace because you cannot remove the ball joint. If this is true, then why can you buy the ball joint by itself? Does Dodge have a special tool to get the old ball joint off? I can barely get the puller tool on the control arm and when I do, the stud pivots and loses it's grip. There has to be a way to do this without removing the whole control arm, which will take several hours for just one side.
How to replace rear upper ball joints on a 2005 Dodge Stratus?
- Thread starter Brian
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