Ball Joint

[subzerocarfanatic]

Does a ball joint exist either OEM Volvo or aftermarket. I have looked all day, even googled the numbers found on rubber part of the ball joint with no luck at all, not 1 single finding, please tell me the entire control arm has to be replaced. Surely someone here has had this problem before.

[misha]

Yep....you need a whole new control arm since the ball joint is not replaceable alone.

You will need Meyle HD,Lemforder,Febi,TRW or OE Volvo(which is Lemforder).
Other aftermarket brands are cr*p.

[subzerocarfanatic]

This has to be the most ridiculous thing ever, throw away a completely good control arm because a serviceable part is not available, way to go Volvo!

[misha]

It's not just like that....there are bushings which can fail too.
If ball joint is good ,you can replace bushings.
Control arms are not that expensive since they last pretty long time....and easy to replace since they bolt on at 3 points.

[subzerocarfanatic]

My argument i guess is it's such a waste, now i have to search for an aftermarket control arm complete assembly because they don't offer a simple ball joint like most other manufactures in the world do, and another thing, they sell the control arm bushing kits, why sell these if you don't sell the ball joint,so you can have a partially rebuilt control arm? I;m done ranting, i will move on now and stoop to a lower quality control arm because of this. I know the Volvo one will be outrageous. thanks for your time.

[scot850]

In the first 2 years of 850 manufacture, the control arms had replaceable ball joints. The control arms were aluminum also. Ball joints were held in with 4 bolts if I recall. I had a pair but was persuaded to sell them to another enthusiast. At that time the price of the ball joint was not that much different especially if you had to also replace the inner bushes.

Neil.

[abscate]

Use a Lemforder or Volvo lower control arm on p80s, not a place to save money.

Critical safety part

[Archer]

Lemforder for sure, although I went with the Meyle HD control arms, tie rods and endlinks, too. Installed on both my '98's, S70/V70, good quality, all is well after several years.

[abscate]

The money saved on LCA would be lost in labour and hardware on the ball joint replacement, pressing out, new bolts, new bushings.

[Clemens]

I have the old version which is secured by three bolts (shame on you Neil for making up false numbers and the newer version where you replace the whole control arm. I honestly enjoyed replacing the modern version, while the old version is not that much fun to replace. The three bolts are very tight and rusty like hell, and it is kinda tricky to get the bolts out because once you losen them the ball joint unit moves around making it hard to apply force to the rusted bolts with a ratchet.

In less time you could replace the balljoint and the inner bushings with less bolts on the newer version. And the old ball joint was only a few Euro less than the complete control arm.