Pumped

its the ball joint on the front lower control arm.
i was very lucky it did'nt happen when i was driving fast.
it happend going like 2 mph. the front wheel caved in.
damm i'm unlucky, does this happen to 3rd gens often?
i have stock suspension with 65k miles
i hope its not too expensive to fix.

maxcooper

A new lower control arm is needed to fix. About $500 for the part.

-Max

Scrub

iTrader: (25)

Damn, that sucks. Thats a lot to fix too. I would also like to know if that is common. I highly doubt it.

paw140

Actually, you're REALLY lucky. Something like this could total the car if you were going fast.
I've never heard of it happening to anyone else.

VFactor24

yep this same thing just happened to me last month and it ended up costing me 750 bucks to fix with labor. With a broken ball joint u have to replace the whole lower a arm

VFactor24

this also happened to me while i was going 2 mph. I was getting gas and then 2 seconds later my right front caved in

Pumped

Hey VFactor24

How many miles did you have on your car when you joint busted??

do you autox/track your car at all..



i'm just pretty choked that that pos fell out.. I usually don't corner too hard, and only autox'd the car one time for about 4 runs

VFactor24

right now i have 92k my suspension set up being completely stock

turbojeff

iTrader: (30)

It would really help if you could show some pics of how it broke. I've never heard of them breaking before, it would be nice to see where it broke.

Jeff

Pumped

sure, i'll take pics tommorow

machinehead

Did either of you notice anything unusual about the way the car was handling before your ball joints broke? Did the front feel sloppy or anything, or fine up to the point that it broke?

Pumped

it felt normal, then all of a sudden it collapsed

VFactor24

the only pics i have is how my front right tire was resting on teh front right fender. The car felt perfectly fine, i hit an exit ramp at the usual speed and then when i went to get gas it just collapsed. Pretty much when i looked under the car the whole lower control arm was off resting on the inside of the rim.

CCarlisi

jesus. that scares me. I drive around in boston potholes. My car has 69k on it (getting old, still remember when it was in the 30s). If I can get a set cheap maybe I'll swap my control arms out when I install the rest of my suspension stuff next month. That's really irresponsible of mazda. I udnerstand the benfits of having light suspension parts, but I would be willing to give up 100 grams per side for piece of mind, or alternately pay a little extra to have them manufactured better. But I'm sure mazda used the optimal method to produce these parts as they did with other items such as the 93 wheels, center counsole finish, exterior finish, ect.

VFactor24

Jedon

I have a complete FD suspension for sale, off a 55K miles 93 R1 if you need a used replacement.
jedon@nopro.com
-Jedon

CCarlisi

thanks Jedon, but I think I will replace them with new parts since I'm concerned about their fatigue strength.

V, looks like a clean car otherwise

Pumped

thats exactly what my car looked like

Pumped

here's some pics of the lower control arm

Pumped

the ball

Pumped

close up of the socket









Thanks to Cyberben3 my cars back on the road

VFactor24

thats pretty much how mine looked too

rxshun7

I haven't posted since I've sold my FD, but I thought that this post would be worth contributing to. I had the same problem with my '93 with 90k miles. My ball joint on my passenger side also failed as I was making a slight right turn in front of my house at about 5mph. The suspension felt fine with no prior warnings of of damage before it failed. After the joint popped the front right side of my car dipped and I felt like the car hopped and skidded a little. I got lucky and found a lower A arm at a Japanese motor importing company for $50. For the next 6 months after I had the arm replaced I didn't experience any further suspension problems. I assume that the car is holding up fine to this day. So I wouldn't be too concerned with replacing the arm with a used one. You would save a huge sum of money because dealer parts cost an arm and a leg. I was very surprised and disappointed when this happened to me.I bet you were thinking WTF? Good luck and I hope this doesn't happen to anyone else.

suganuma

.

pomanferrari

iTrader: (1)

This is the first time I've seen of this. Typically if your ball joint starts to go bad, as you go over bumps, your steering wheel would oscillate.

In any case, I replaced my 97K arms with 10K miles arms.