4 replies to this topic

[paulrockliffe]

Just had my hubs off and ball joints off to replace them as I had the suspension in bits to swap onto a new subframe and realised they were shagged.  When fitting the new ones it occurred to me that the car had been MOT'd a week before I bought it, and a year later, but sat in my workshop undriven since.  Would the MOT not pick up play in the ball joints?

 

When I've had the joints in bits, only one had any sign of any shims, three had random bits of metal in, three had massive amounts of play, one has never been greased and was just full of dry rust, the others were pretty dry.  Straight in the bin!

[RustyAutoCityE]

An MOT tester should have spotted and logged play in the ball joints.

 

The last MOT on mine has the advisory "Nearside Front Front suspension has slight play in a upper suspension ball joint."

 

Good job you found out now, rather then going down the road.

[paulrockliffe]

Every time I've had anything in bits on the car it's exposed more lies I was told when I bought it, it was supposedly a daily driver, but there's no way it was and I assumed the MOT was dodgy a long time ago, so put it down to all that. 

 

But then I remembered I'd also had it MOT'd and that hadn't picked up the ball joints either, so wondered whether there was something in how they test for play that just doesn't find play in the ball joints on an old car.

 

My MOT did pick up the exhaust manifold that was completely rotten, the leaking drum brake cylinders, the weak hand brake, the split CV gaitors, worn wheel bearings and a few other things that hadn't suddenly appeared after being sat in the garage, but not the ball joints.

[RustyAutoCityE]

Sounds like quite a list of nasty surprises, maybe the tester started to feel bad...

Joking aside, my local tester puts the car on a ramp, jacks it up and gives the wheels a good shake. No fancy equipment needed to expose the play.

[sonscar]

Most MOT places have automatic shaker plates to show wear.Some suspension types need specific test methods.Also " worn to excess" may be open to interpretation.Steve..