Quote:
Originally Posted by Who
Change Joe to Honda and sister to wife... yeah, that's the context.
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A lower ball joint coming apart at 60 mph is a life threatening event, so a second opinion is required before she can decides to get a new mechanic and ignore this one's advise.
Any competent alignment shop should be able to
test for bad ball joint(s)* in under 10 minutes.
*Jack front of car up and look for movement in ball joint while wiggling wheel. Specific jacking point(s) depend on suspension design. In a few instances, the ball joint is designed with an inspectable wear indicator pin = no need to wiggle wheel - don't know if honda had that.
Assuming you're limited to help over the phone, give her a script to memorize. eg. "The
Mechanics (heavy sarcasm goes here) at Joe Blow Honda, are telling me I need lower ball joints. The car only has xx thousand miles on good roads, so I'm thinking it's a line of B.S. - 'cause I'm a woman'. Can you check them for me and
show me if there is anything wrong?"
FWIW The
mechanics (can't put enough sarcasm there) at the local Chevy dealer once told a female cousin and her mom that the noise from the rear - when going over rail road tracks - was the differential about to fall out. Very dangerous and 'your car is too old to fix, so buy a new one.' The noise was the jack and tire iron rattling around loose on top of the spare tire.