S80 ball joint failure

My daughter was on her way to work two weeks ago in her 2000 S80 and
had a "catastrophic failure" of the left front ball joint. Thank God
no one else was around her and she was going only 40 mph--not yet on
the freeway she was headed to. We have had the car 2 1/2 yrs and it has
63,000 miles on it. We do all scheduled maintenance and she says there
was absolutely no warning! I'm writing Volvo USA, but we have lost our
confidence in this car (in Volvo?). The ball joints had been replaced
when the car was a year old I found out, because of a campaign to
replace them. Well, the new ones aren't working any better apparently!

Shannon

<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) oups.com...
> My daughter was on her way to work two weeks ago in her 2000 S80 and
> had a "catastrophic failure" of the left front ball joint. Thank God
> no one else was around her and she was going only 40 mph--not yet on
> the freeway she was headed to. We have had the car 2 1/2 yrs and it has
> 63,000 miles on it. We do all scheduled maintenance and she says there
> was absolutely no warning! I'm writing Volvo USA, but we have lost our
> confidence in this car (in Volvo?). The ball joints had been replaced
> when the car was a year old I found out, because of a campaign to
> replace them. Well, the new ones aren't working any better apparently!
>
> Shannon
>
Ball joint failure can happen with any car. Often there is warning in the
form of dodginess on rough surfaces like railroad tracks and poor roads, but
other times (especially low mileage failures) there really is no warning.
Since Volvo probably doesn't make the ball joints, but buys them from a
vendor, the problem undoubtedly exists in other anonymous makes.

Ball joint failure happened to one of the gurus in the alt.autos.honda
forum: http://tegger.com/hondafaq/lowerballjoint/index.html

Mike

Michael Pardee wrote:
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed) oups.com...
>
>>My daughter was on her way to work two weeks ago in her 2000 S80 and
>>had a "catastrophic failure" of the left front ball joint. Thank God
>>no one else was around her and she was going only 40 mph--not yet on
>>the freeway she was headed to. We have had the car 2 1/2 yrs and it has
>>63,000 miles on it. We do all scheduled maintenance and she says there
>>was absolutely no warning! I'm writing Volvo USA, but we have lost our
>>confidence in this car (in Volvo?). The ball joints had been replaced
>>when the car was a year old I found out, because of a campaign to
>>replace them. Well, the new ones aren't working any better apparently!
>>
>>Shannon
>>
>
> Ball joint failure can happen with any car. Often there is warning in the
> form of dodginess on rough surfaces like railroad tracks and poor roads, but
> other times (especially low mileage failures) there really is no warning.
> Since Volvo probably doesn't make the ball joints, but buys them from a
> vendor, the problem undoubtedly exists in other anonymous makes.
>
> Ball joint failure happened to one of the gurus in the alt.autos.honda
> forum: http://tegger.com/hondafaq/lowerballjoint/index.html
>
> Mike
>
>

Ball joint failure at 63,000 miles is certainly NOT common, particularly
after the vehicle has already had a dealer installed replacement
previously. I wonder how many miles were on Tegger's Honda before it's
failure?

John

"John Horner" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:xWHqg.1129$nG2.778@trnddc05...
> Michael Pardee wrote:
>> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:(E-Mail Removed) oups.com...
>>
>>>My daughter was on her way to work two weeks ago in her 2000 S80 and
>>>had a "catastrophic failure" of the left front ball joint. Thank God
>>>no one else was around her and she was going only 40 mph--not yet on
>>>the freeway she was headed to. We have had the car 2 1/2 yrs and it has
>>>63,000 miles on it. We do all scheduled maintenance and she says there
>>>was absolutely no warning! I'm writing Volvo USA, but we have lost our
>>>confidence in this car (in Volvo?). The ball joints had been replaced
>>>when the car was a year old I found out, because of a campaign to
>>>replace them. Well, the new ones aren't working any better apparently!
>>>
>>>Shannon
>>>
>>
>> Ball joint failure can happen with any car. Often there is warning in the
>> form of dodginess on rough surfaces like railroad tracks and poor roads,
>> but other times (especially low mileage failures) there really is no
>> warning. Since Volvo probably doesn't make the ball joints, but buys them
>> from a vendor, the problem undoubtedly exists in other anonymous makes.
>>
>> Ball joint failure happened to one of the gurus in the alt.autos.honda
>> forum: http://tegger.com/hondafaq/lowerballjoint/index.html
>>
>> Mike
>
> Ball joint failure at 63,000 miles is certainly NOT common, particularly
> after the vehicle has already had a dealer installed replacement
> previously. I wonder how many miles were on Tegger's Honda before it's
> failure?
>
> John
>
Maybe I should ask him - I am sure it was plenty of miles. I see the Integra
has about 270K miles (433K km) on it now
http://tegger.com/hondafaq/misc/mileage.jpg

Like you say, ball joint failure at 63K miles is very unusual.

Mike

In article <(E-Mail Removed) .com>,
(E-Mail Removed) says...
> My daughter was on her way to work two weeks ago in her 2000 S80 and
> had a "catastrophic failure" of the left front ball joint. Thank God
> no one else was around her and she was going only 40 mph--not yet on
> the freeway she was headed to. We have had the car 2 1/2 yrs and it has
> 63,000 miles on it. We do all scheduled maintenance and she says there
> was absolutely no warning! I'm writing Volvo USA, but we have lost our
> confidence in this car (in Volvo?). The ball joints had been replaced
> when the car was a year old I found out, because of a campaign to
> replace them. Well, the new ones aren't working any better apparently!
>
> Shannon
>
>
Ball joint wear is proportional to to the surface condition of the roads
the car is driven on. Poorly maintained city street driving or high
speed country road driving will accelerate all suspension component
wear. If your mechanic hasn't been checking the suspension bits at every
service interval....

Bob
--
The goal when driving is to miss the maximum number of objects.

> My daughter was on her way to work two weeks ago in her 2000 S80 and
> had a "catastrophic failure" of the left front ball joint. Thank God
> no one else was around her and she was going only 40 mph--not yet on
> the freeway she was headed to. We have had the car 2 1/2 yrs and it has
> 63,000 miles on it. We do all scheduled maintenance and she says there
> was absolutely no warning! I'm writing Volvo USA, but we have lost our
> confidence in this car (in Volvo?). The ball joints had been replaced
> when the car was a year old I found out, because of a campaign to
> replace them. Well, the new ones aren't working any better apparently!
>
> Shannon

Get it to the local Volvo dealer for them to have a look.
Lets hear what they say, before we jump to conclusions.

Niels