torn ball joint boot
 

When putting on my new H&R springs I tore the boot on the ball joint pretty bad on my 2002 S. The car has 48k miles on it and I looked at the cost for a new ball joint and, of course, it only comes as an entire control arm. It costs a ridiculous amount of money. Any sense on how long she'll last with the torn boot in sunny florida with no road salt?

Shel

Not long is my guess if it's the lower control arm. It will start squeaking badly when dirt gets in it and the grease dries out. You'll be changing it out well before it wears out though due to the horrendous squeaking that makes you crazy and look like a Pcar driver who can't afford to get his car fixed (that's how I felt anway!).

You can get a front, lower control arm from Sunset for a little over $220 and it only takes a decent mechanic 45 minutes to replace. Book rate at the dealership is 4 hours and they sell the part for $450 or so. However, doing it yourself or buying the part and having a Pcar mechanic swap it out for you for actual time will be a LOT cheaper.

Hope this helps!

buy a generic boot. the boot on your ball joint is held in place by a metal ring, which can be pried off of the control arm. you can install a replacement generic boot from an auto parts store using silicone sealant and a zip tie to hold it in place. pack the ball joint with grease first.

also, see my forthcoming post (around Sunday i'll have the pictures) on how to install zerk fittings on the boxster ball joints so that they can be periodically lubricated. this will prevent the premature squeaking of which randall speaks. whatever you do, don't waste your money on a used control arm. i did this twice and both began squeaking within months.

1) Why do people expect Porsche parts to be "cheap"? Grr. I really hate this one. The car was likely $60,000 when new afterall.

2) While you may not have road salt, you do have sand, dirt, tar, pebbles, stone,.. you get the point. There are plenty of other substances that will eat away at an unsealed ball joint. Considering the important job that is asked of a ball joint, I'm not really sure why you would skimp out on doing it "right".

i don't know that we expect them to be 'inexpensive', but i definitely don't expect them to be 'cheap,' which the ball joints certainly are. in a car this expensive that is designed more or less for sport, it should have servicable ball joints OR adequate lubrication / construction to last for 150K miles. these things crap out at the 75K mark. that's crap (and 'cheap').

if it's not squeaking, a replacement boot is fine. lube up the bal joint, install a boot and be done with it. there's no reason to buy an entire control arm because a boot is torn; that would be crazy. unfortunately, it is the expectaion of Porsche that this is exactly what we will do: purchase a new control arm for $300 to replace a perfectly good conrol arm because a $2 boot is bad. this is either poor engineering or excellent engineering, depending on their goals.....

I second that. A couple of weeks ago, I was in CA visiting my brother and his next door neighbor was a mechanic. Said his brother does a lot of work on Porsches and when I told him I had a boxster, he said, "with your mileage, I'm betting you are replacing a bunch of plastic parts on your car, huh?"

As a matter of fact, I have been replacing plastic parts a lot. And they are CHEAPLY made and EXPENSIVE for what you get.

I am also riding on my third lower front control arm... I've replaced the original twice now.

see my forthcoming post (ETA Sunday or so) on how to install zerk fittings into these control arms to make them servicable.

I ripped one of mine when I did my suspension also. To be honest with you, I just make sure that it stays greased and I have never had an issue with it at all. I know I should have replaced it but the truth is It causes me no problems. It's been like this now for almost 3 years and about 10kmiles.