Truck was getting new tires today as well as getting the brakes serviced. Apparently the mechanic found that the ball joints were worn out. I have a 2/4 drop on my truck and it has about 75,000 miles on it. Is it the drop that caused them to go bad?

 

Normal wear and tear will cause them to fail. One of my driver side lower balljoints failed on my 2000 Silverado at 90,000mi. I changed it myself, but wasn't easy!!! You will definately need an air chisel to remove the four big rivets holding them in. At least thats how mine was. My 2000 Silverado's lower control arms were the pressed hollwed out steel type control arms. My new 2005 truck has solid steel lower A arms.
The new balljoints will come with 4 standard type grade bolts that replace the factory rivets. Don't overtighten them as I did. They all snapped. Torque them to specs. I replaced them with Grade 8 bolts and nuts.
It will definately cost a lot if someone else does both sides. Did he say if the upper balljoints were bad too? I mainly see that the lowers usually only fail on the 99 & up Silverados at about 100,000K.
Let me ask you this. When was the last time you greased them???? They should be greased every 15,000 mi.
They will fail eventually, but sooner if not maintained often.

Jim

 

If you lowered it with springs, there is a chance the altered geometry of the suspension put extra strain on them. If you dropped it using a spindle and the geometry was the same I would say it is not the likely cause.

Where and how you drive can also make a difference. pot holes, curb checks, etc all play hell on your suspension components. Off roading in general will wear out components quite quickly.

As mentioned, regular greasing is good preventative maintenance. they put the grease zerks on there for a reason.......

 

I've never greased them, but I'll be keeping an eye on them from here on out. A shop is doing the work for me as I type this response. It's gonna cost $500-$600. It should be ready within a few hours, I'll talk to the mechanic then and check everything out.