The Nissan Path

So I need to change my ball joints on 05 se. My question is I found uppers and lowers on rock auto for a good price. But I have a family member who works at car quest and I also asked him what his prices are. He stated that with the uppers he can only get the whole upper control arm with ball joint in it and it looks as if the upper has a cap and is sealed. My question is can the upper be changed without changing control arm. Or do I need to change the whole thing. Also would it be better to change the whole upper control arm being that he can get them for 60 bucks each?

Farmer21 wrote:So I need to change my ball joints on 05 se. My question is I found uppers and lowers on rock auto for a good price. But I have a family member who works at car quest and I also asked him what his prices are. He stated that with the uppers he can only get the whole upper control arm with ball joint in it and it looks as if the upper has a cap and is sealed. My question is can the upper be changed without changing control arm. Or do I need to change the whole thing. Also would it be better to change the whole upper control arm being that he can get them for 60 bucks each?

I just replaced upper and lower ball joints on my 05 pathy and you can just replace the ball joint itself. I got them from my local Napa store. They press out and in just like the lower

Yes you can do it. However, what I have found is that the arms are not constructed as strongly as they could, and the chance of deforming them when removing the old balljoint and pressing in the new ball joint is pretty high.

Also, when you replace the whole arm, you get new bushings.

I've done it both ways on previous vehicles, and lean towards replacing the whole arm. Makes the job a snap too.