bottom ball joint failure

[charlies paj]

Hi all, does anyone no anything about bottom ball joint failures on a kzj 95 prado
?. had one fail today, not the sort of thing you expect to snap !!. i no there have been posts about the top joint but I'm interested in the bottom one. thanks

[rokhound]

Good fun isn't it?
Fortunately mine went at 30 odd KPH.
There is a thread etc on it somewhere,

[tallsam66]

Appears to be a common problem ...i saw a truck stopped at side of road a weeks ago in Amberley that had that happen to it...kinda scary!

[Heath]

My left side failed (seems to be most prevalent - due to rough kerb/roadside causing damage) when on the hoist for a wheel alignment. I regularly drove on motorway and for it to collapse into 3 bits a was scary. Glad it didnt happen on the road at 100km.

[lax2wlg]

Jesus Christ that sort of thing doesn't help IFS's reputation.

Then again balljoints do wear out.

[rokhound]

This a build quality issue with the ball joints as they don't get sloppy over a period of time, and if you drive the vehicle every day you don't even notice.
My wife drove mine a week or so before this happened and commented on the steering being too stiff, I told her she was dreaming as the playdoh was not her zuk.
But the ball joints appear to run dry and start to freeze, then they just fail. I didn't give it much thought, but apparently it is quite an issue with these wagons (so it must affect KZN 185 surfs as well). If memory serves me right, Mike S rang Toyota with these pics and was told that it was bad luck as my suspension had been altered (it has 50mm lifted struts and coils).
I had also just come off the open roads, and if this happened at 100kph, or even at 60kph things could get pretty ugly.

[charlies paj]

Thanks for the responses. Time to go and see Mr Toyota (Im sure that will be fun)
If anybody else has anything to add it would be appreciated. Ours failed at low speed as well thank goodness with four young kids. Considering we do a lot of open road driving. Seems to me its only a matter of time before something serious happens due to one of these failures. This joint also showed no signs of wear it just snapped.

[mudbugga]

Known fault.....there was a recall on a small range of Prado models.