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      12-10-2014, 12:45 PM   #1
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Front Suspension Clunking - Ball Joint Done? Replace Just The Ball Joint or...

Hey everyone, I'm experiencing a front clunking/almost banging around sound in the front of my suspension every so often. I jacked the car up thinking it was an end link or sway bar bushing but found nothing out of the norm.

After reading on here it sounds like it's the ball joint, which seems to be a common problem.

Now my question is should I just replace the whole control arm (is it really that much easier like people are saying) or just the ball joints? No matter which route I'll obviously do both sides but seeing the price difference has me wondering which to do. $70 vs $300 for parts. I will be doing the work myself so I'm not concerned about labor cost.

I'm looking at swapping in the Meyle HD's.

Would love to hear everyones thoughts, thanks!
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      12-27-2014, 10:36 PM   #2
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If the non-M's control arm is similar to the M's, just replace the whole arm.
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      01-05-2015, 11:17 AM   #3
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IIRC the ball joints are not replaceable. I replaced the entire arm with the Meyle HD because they have ball joints that are replaceable. The drivers side is super easy to do. The passenger side there is one bolt (or nut, been a couple years since I did this) that is a PITA to get at. Took about 6 hours to replace everything and most of that time was to get that 1 bolt out. I also changed the FCAB, tie rods, springs and struts, plus other misc parts at the same time. Did a complete refresh on the front end. So far they are holding up well. I have about 25K miles on them.
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      01-06-2015, 08:56 AM   #4
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It was a pretty easy to do the control arms swap on my '03 Sport suspension. While you're down there, might as well do the control arm bushings as well as the control arms and sway-bar end links. ECS Tuning has some nice suspension kits that include all the new bits, and the one I put in was all Meyle HD. This is the kit I installed last summer with no issues:

http://www.ecstuning.com/BMW-Z4-2.5i...its/ES2219687/

PS: If you don't already have a pickle fork, make sure you have one before starting the project. You'll still need to separate the front ball joint from the spindle and that makes it SO much easier. Just a couple whacks with a BFH, and that's all she wrote.
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      10-16-2018, 12:45 PM   #5
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2016 f80 M3 passenger side control arm ball joint bad at 20,000 miles according to Bmw of Alexandria Va.. Was hearing a rattling clunking noise while going over road imperfections, coming from passenger side. It had gotten so bad that the break pedal became clunky when applying them at slow speeds. Will update when I get the car back as to whether this resolved my issue.
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