I have owned 8 gen1 CRV's. My latest one has had ball joint problems. At different times, 2 lower front ball joints, different brands, installed at different times, have failed due to the ball pulling out of the socket of the joint. One was on left side, the other on the right side. Both major brand name products, not cheapos. Both less that one year old and less that 10, thousand miles of normal highway use. Both failed at speeds under 20 mph with no warning. Front wheel collapsed and fender damage, axle pulled out the socket. I have installed at least a dozen lower ball joints in my CRV's over a 14 year period without any failures before this. I have searched endlessly on the internet, forums, etc. with not one bit of info found about this. Could anyone provide some insight before I decide to junk this car due to safety concerns?

 

welcome to the forum. Do you have a good 4 wheel alignment, does your tire ware unevenly, have you had any suspension damage,(car wreck) do you climb over curbing or tires hard during parallel parking, do you drive over dirt roads often, do you have any high approach to your driveway, are your tie rods snug, just a few things to check for that cause ball joint failures. all stabilizer bushings in good shape. having over 100 cars to date, i have had one ball joint failure in a ford granada. at low speed so no vehicle damage. not fun when driving. caught my attention really quick.

 

None of your questions apply to me. Like I said, I have had multiple CRV's over the years and installed multiple ball joints in them. I spent 9 years as an alignment professional. I am a seventy year old experienced, careful driver. Thanks for your reply

 

Must be the Gen 1 CRV that causes this lower ball joint issue.
I have the Gen 3. 2007 CRV and have had to replace the sway bar links and outer tie rod ends.
And, I have only it had it for less than two years.

 

I appreciate responses but I don't think this has anything to do with 1st Generation vs. newer generations. As I said, I have owned multiple gen 1 Crv's, I think this the seventh one. I have never experienced ball joints coming apart in any of them except this one. One of the other ones I owned for about 10 years was the same year as the one with the problem I am speaking of. All of them have been almost exclusively highway or interstate driven. Without exception myself or my family have driven over 100,000 miles in them all and have taken them past 200,000 miles on the clock. So I am not sure this is even a CRV problem, maybe just a problem with an individual vehicle. I came to the CRV Forum to find out if perhaps other have had this problem with their CRV's. Apparently not so I am going to widen my search a bit for an answer. Thank you all again. Dan