Hello everybody! New to the forum and my first post here. I have a Ford F-150 regular cab short bed pickup. 6 cylinder with 5 on the floor. When I bought the truck in October of 2005, it only had 9800 miles on it. I knew the owner, a gentleman in his late 70's. The truck was well maintained (records were in the glove box) and in like new condition when I purchased it from his neice after his passing. I noticed a "thunk" when the left front dropped into a pothole. It sounded like a shock bushing to me. I had the shocks checked and replaced as they were leaking, probably from setting too much and allowing the seals to dry out. This helped somewhat but did not completely take care of the noise. Examination by the Ford dealer showed no front end problems. Now, at the current 25,000 miles the truck has on it, I had the allignment checked after installing new tires. The exam showed that both tie rod ends were worn out as was the left lower ball joint and the right front wheel bearings were a little loose. All were replaced and cams installed so that the camber could be set at allignment. Isn't this an unusual amount of wear for a 25,000 mile truck to have? It has never been abused to my knowledge. Most of the mileage is hiway with about 20 miles per week on a well graded dirt road at reasonable speeds. I am positive that the mileage is correct. I just cannot understand why all the wear on the tie rod ends and ball joints at such a low mileage and neither can my repairman/alligner, who I trust implicitly as he and his boss are both personal friends. Can anybody shed any light on this situation. It seems unusual to me. The only thing I can think of is maybe the old man hit a curb really hard and did some front end damage and some unscrupulous repairman installed some used parts. I think this unlikely, as all his paperwork seems to indicate that his service was all done at the selling Ford dealership. Any ideas out there in Ford land? Thanks, Daryl

 

Not unusual, those parts not having any greasable fittings certainly contributes to a lot of this. The good news is that it is not limited to just the ford models.