> I replaced upper & lower balljoints and control arm
> bushings on my 1990 Carat about a year ago with ones
> purchased from Bus Depot. I was told by 2 different
> mechanics that they are worn out already! (play and
> slop in them)

If you went through a complete set of upper and lower ball joints (and
control arm bushings as well?) in a year, something has to be amiss other
than the parts. If you'd you'd bought $10 ball joints on Ebay or from a
discount chain I might wonder what quality you received. But like the other
list vendors, the ones we ship are all quality brands (Febi, Lemfoerder,
Meyle, etc.). So the replacements you buy now (assuming you deal with us or
another quality source, of course) will be comparable to what you bought
already.

Of course it is possible for there to be the isolated defect here or there.
But we don't get back more than two or three defective ball joints a year
altogether (out of hundreds and hundreds sold), much less 4 off of the same
vehicle.  It is also possible for a manufacturer to produce an entire
defective batch of a particular part number ... but then hundreds of people
would get bad ones (not just one person, and not multiple part numbers at
once). So, assuming that the mechanics are correct in the first place, there
has to be something else going on with your Vanagon caused this. I'd love to
clue you in as to what that is, but frankly I'm not sure; from a parts
perspective I've never run into this before.  (Any thoughts from others on
the list? I see Roger suggested radius arm bushings. Other bushings? Shocks?
Alignment? Combination?)  All I can say is that something doesn't add up.
We're missing a piece of the puzzle here, and it's probably worth
investigating before (or at least while) replacing the parts.

- Ron Salmon
  The Bus Depot, Inc.
  www.busdepot.com
  (215)  234-VWVW

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