Front ball joints sweating

[IftyH]

Hi everyone,

I’m new on this forum. I wish to pick your brains.
 

My 2017 Yaris Icon Tech (80,500 miles) is making crunching noises whenever I go over an uneven part of the road and humps. My local Toyota  dealer in Watford said, “The front ball joints are sweating”. The repair bill is £1131.67. 
 

Shouldn’t this be covered under warranty given that every service from new (9 services) have been carried out by them? They’re saying it’s wear & tear. 
 

Please let me know your thoughts. 

Regards. 
IftyH 

[flash22]

Get a second option asap, steering components come under, wear and tear, sweating ball joints that's a new one, anything to do with the recent weather

[Bernard Foy]

49 minutes ago, IftyH said:

Hi everyone,

I’m new on this forum. I wish to pick your brains.
 

My 2017 Yaris Icon Tech (80,500 miles) is making crunching noises whenever I go over an uneven part of the road and humps. My local Toyota  dealer in Watford said, “The front ball joints are sweating”. The repair bill is £1131.67. 
 

Shouldn’t this be covered under warranty given that every service from new (9 services) have been carried out by them? They’re saying it’s wear & tear. 
 

Please let me know your thoughts. 

Regards. 
IftyH 

Freezing ball joints I just might have swallowed, but sweating ones in the middle of a cold spell!!🤣😂🤣

[flash22]

The rubber can weep some grease, more than likely road grime, if the rubber is split or there is wear in the joint it will fail it's MOT, i have seen it where dealers have sprayed WD40 on things to make them look worse

[Mooly]

One of the myriad problems I had on an Audi A4 was a noise going slowly over uneven surfaces. I'd read about the problem and knew it was a seized ball joint on the anti roll bar drop links however...

I was so fed up with all the issues with that car I used a cheap hypo needle and mixed up some sloppy grease (grease and engine oil) and injected it into the ball joint cover. I think I drilled the rubber cover with a 0.8mm bit (I have drill bits down to 0.3mm for electronics work) and the hole was so small you couldn't tell. It literally self sealed.

It took about 3 days for the joint to go silent and after this I could move the drop link quite freely and smoothly whereas before it was very well stuck and... well... seized.

So if you know it is a ball joint issue it might be worth a try.

 

 

 

[TonyHSD]

Sweating ball joints?! That’s must be a something new 😂👌
If the rubber is only a bit wet from lube or road grime just ignore it, this is typical and not an issue at all. Ball joint fail if there is a play in it or very bad grinding noise when turning the steering wheel. When going over bumps squeaky noises comes from suspension arm bushes and those also doesn’t need change but few sprays of silicone lubricant. Job done and no need or repairs. Toyota cars can make their ball joints lube wet outside as soon as only few years old and 20-30k miles, this doesn’t mean failure or anything to be worry about. They will last another 000 000 miles easily if car used outside London, you are inside but even so still they might be perfectly fine. 
You can spray some silicone spray on these and see if noises disappear. 

[FROSTYBALLS]

Moved to the Yaris forum.

[Guest]

On 12/20/2022 at 6:19 PM, flash22 said:

i have seen it where dealers have sprayed WD40 on things to make them look worse

Not only dealers. Some years ago I was having a part exhaust fitted. Someone came into the waiting room and accompanied me to the car. Showed me a "leaking" damper that required changing. I told him that was strange because it's just passed an M.o.T. not an hour ago with the advisory exhaust issue. 

Yes WD40 or similar sprayed onto it to look like a leak! I'll not divulge which organisation it was. However, they were fairly quick in fitting the exhaust and back tracking.

[corradovr6]

you could probably take it to a sensible Mot place and ask them to check the balljoints and see if there's any issue.  Some don't do repairs so wont have a vested interest in showing faults in the car

[anchorman]

On 12/20/2022 at 3:59 PM, IftyH said:

Hi everyone,

I’m new on this forum. I wish to pick your brains.
 

My 2017 Yaris Icon Tech (80,500 miles) is making crunching noises whenever I go over an uneven part of the road and humps. My local Toyota  dealer in Watford said, “The front ball joints are sweating”. The repair bill is £1131.67. 
 

Shouldn’t this be covered under warranty given that every service from new (9 services) have been carried out by them? They’re saying it’s wear & tear. 
 

Please let me know your thoughts. 

Regards. 
IftyH 

Tell them to gubber off.  It is covered.  If they don’t concede, phone Toyota Customer Services.   
 

https://www.toyota.co.uk/content/dam/toyota/nmsc/united-kingdom/owners/warranty/toyota-warranty/toyota-warranty-ts-and-cs-june-2022.pdf

[Mojo1010]

If above is the case, then the OP should still contact Toyota GB to make a complain and trading standards. If more people do it when this happens then dealers will likely play by the books. What they are doing is fraud. 

[IftyH]

I’m ever so grateful for all your replies!!! I’ll call Toyota GB in the morning and let you guys know the outcome. 

[Devon Aygo]

3 hours ago, anchorman said:

Tell them to gubber off.  It is covered.  If they don’t concede, phone Toyota Customer Services.   
 

https://www.toyota.co.uk/content/dam/toyota/nmsc/united-kingdom/owners/warranty/toyota-warranty/toyota-warranty-ts-and-cs-june-2022.pdf

You are quoting Driveline not Suspension, Driveline covers driveshafts, prop shafts, etc. The warranty also specifically excludes "any parts not mentioned explicitly in these terms" Ball joints are not explicitly mentioned and not covered.

The OP mentions a "Sweating Ball joint" sweating is not a manufacturing defect but a symptom of wear & tare most likely to the rubber boot on the ball joint "rubber parts" are specifically mentioned as excluded and on this model Yaris there are 4 ball joints 2 on each front suspension arm 2 on each steering track rod end again neither of these are mentioned parts so not covered under the service activated warranty.

 

 

toyota-warranty-ts-and-cs-june-2022 (1).pdf

[anchorman]

6 hours ago, Devon Aygo said:

You are quoting Driveline not Suspension, Driveline covers driveshafts, prop shafts, etc. The warranty also specifically excludes "any parts not mentioned explicitly in these terms" Ball joints are not explicitly mentioned and not covered.

The OP mentions a "Sweating Ball joint" sweating is not a manufacturing defect but a symptom of wear & tare most likely to the rubber boot on the ball joint "rubber parts" are specifically mentioned as excluded and on this model Yaris there are 4 ball joints 2 on each front suspension arm 2 on each steering track rod end again neither of these are mentioned parts so not covered under the service activated warranty.

 

 

toyota-warranty-ts-and-cs-june-2022 (1).pdf 181.88 kB · 2 downloads

What you are saying is Lee, that by changing the name from rubber boots to rubber boots sweating, a term that is nonsensical that the most likely components to fail in the suspension are excluded in the warranty.  Not your doing I know but it is rather pathetic.   Everything on the car is subject to wear but I would have hoped that ball joints could do 100k without failure.  That would send me to a third party garage and copy parts, there’s nothing to lose (I’d do them myself but not everyone can).  

[IftyH]

Interesting guys. But when you pay Toyota £220 for a minor service & £320 for a major service on a Yaris every 10,000 miles, you still expect the manufacturer should cover these issues at least up to 100,000 miles. 
 

A new Yaris costs from £22,100. With decent spec like sat nav, camera & parking sensors, it can fetch you £25,000 for one of the smallest cars.
 

I just didn’t expect that I am meant to replace moving parts that I can’t see (because I’m not a mechanic) to be replaced by me. 

[anchorman]

36 minutes ago, IftyH said:

Interesting guys. But when you pay Toyota £220 for a minor service & £320 for a major service on a Yaris every 10,000 miles, you still expect the manufacturer should cover these issues at least up to 100,000 miles. 
 

A new Yaris costs from £22,100. With decent spec like sat nav, camera & parking sensors, it can fetch you £25,000 for one of the smallest cars.
 

I just didn’t expect that I am meant to replace moving parts that I can’t see (because I’m not a mechanic) to be replaced by me. 

I’m normally quite matter of fact on such things but I’m 100% with you on this.  Rubber boots are covered on driveline but to avoid paying warranty they’ve invented a term to cater for them not being covered.  Maybe if the rubber boots didn’t “sweat” the flippin ball joints wouldn’t fail.  There are some disappointing things coming out of Toyota UK and whoever came up with that policy is a double agent for Kia.  Man up Toyota, change his lower arms like the world’s supposedly number one manufacturer should if they had no shame and where does £1100 come from anyway?  I’d love to sit with the CEO for a little chat.  

[corradovr6]

Are there any good garages local to you that could give you a second opinion perhaps?  Even if you have to pay them say £20 for 10 minutes on the ramp or a quick test drive with them?  Sadly good and honest garage owners at getting thinner on the ground now..

£1100 seems crazily high!

[Mojo1010]

Interesting, if they invented a different word to swerve the warranty work then I would probably get trading standards involved first and end route the ombudsman. 

[IftyH]

See attached itemised bill from Toyota. 

[TonyHSD]

Reading here me think, does it really worth having a Relax warranty then? The price of service it’s crazy expensive and as crazy as Toyota cars are at the moment. Relax warranty should be an extension of the original car warranty within the first 3 years where there is very important element: “premature wear and tear”. The only problem here is to proof to Toyota or their representative dealer. I can assure you that unless the car driven like on rally or been stolen and chased by the police any Toyota suspension ball joints should last way more than 5 years and 100k miles. I worked in largest fleet of Prius in uk previously and non of their cars had any issues with suspension, I own few Toyota Auris and also non issues to date, one of these is also a high miles car still on its original suspension, I mean not even a bush or link been replaced to date. Also as I mentioned, this “ sweating “ event is normal and it’s not exactly an issue or meant to be wear on the components. These parts in question needs to be checked only to establish if there is any wear on them or just a bit of wet marks from the lubricant. My current car first spotted these sweating at 50k miles and 5 years old, now 12 years old and 232000 miles no suspension job ever needed, lube marks been mostly cleaned by themselves from wet motorway drive and no MOT advisory about it. 👍

[Cyker]

I'm still confused why sweating ball joints would cause a crunching sound on uneven ground; Are the ball joints actually failing? 

It appears they are wanting to replace the entire suspension arm - Is that really not covered??

[Cyker]

 

[IftyH]

What would cause the crunching sounds on an uneven road or on humps?

Shall I contact Toyota GB and say the suspension arms need to be replaced under warranty?

[MikeSh]

17 minutes ago, IftyH said:

Shall I contact Toyota GB and say the suspension arms need to be replaced under warranty?

In such situations I say "If you don't ask, they can't say 'Yes' ".

[flash22]

get a second opinion asap

As devon said its not covered as it's not specified, ball joints are a wear and tear item