Suspension repairs

Westmead_Fan

im pretty sure that you can change just the ball joints on these renault twingo cars, the reason is im pretty sure my first job on monday is an 08 twingo, ball joint just to excessive play.

if that is the case then you should be looking at £150 - £160 with lemforder joints & tracking for both sides.

when looking for quotes cheaper may sound better but usually cheap aftermarket parts of poor quality are used & don't last

s_b

if you can just fit a balljoint then make sure they come from a proper factors rather than white box rubbish
if arm has to come off then unfortunately reenolts tend to like to not play ball and decaptivate their captivated nuts and low mileage often doesnt help,maybe this is why quote is high or of course they might be lifting your leg
is garage a member of foxy lady?
waste of time looking for goodwill from dealer as routine servicing should pull up splitting balljoint covers before water ingress would cause failure of joint

bigjl

Hopefully the lower arm and subframe is designed differently to the Clio mk3.

As on the Clio you have to drop the subframe to get the lower arm off.

Bought the lower arms when EuroCarParts had a sale so figured why not put them in stock. Car has an occasional clunk from front but still passes MOT every year.

2yrs later still waiting for the clutch to need replacing so I can do both jobs at the same time.

But 12k miles seems a very low mileage for these kind of parts to need done.

I would consider taking it for another MOT or have a friend take a look. Not unheard for a garage to make up work.

Electrical and trim problems aside Renault cars are no less robust than most other cars.

AdrianC

bigjl wrote: »

Hopefully the lower arm and subframe is designed differently to the Clio mk3.

Unlikely to be substantially different, since the Twingo II uses the same platform as the Clio III.

bigjl

In that case I can't see the original arms having substantial wear at 12k.

It is a robust arm. And not cheap to buy either.

The annoying thing is you can see the bolt but you can't get a spanner on it.

Really annoying as lower arms should be a simple job.

On the rare occasion I have had them changed it was amazing how much wear would still happily pass an MOT.

Retrogamer

bigjl wrote: »

In that case I can't see the original arms having substantial wear at 12k.

The arms aren't worn.
The ball joint on the suspension arm is worn. It's likely the dust cover burst some time ago since it failed on that also.
Grease would have got out and dirt & water in causing it to wear prematurely.

For the OP.

I would find out if the ball joint on the arm can be removed and if so just replace the ball joint on it's own.

scruffbag1

Thank you to everyone for your advice - it is much appreciated! My friend's dad who is a mechanic has offered to repair it. After searching online it seems this is quite a common problem with Renault and the model in particular, and not something that should be happening after just 12000 miles!

Spicy_McHaggis

scruffbag1 wrote: »

Thank you to everyone for your advice - it is much appreciated! My friend's dad who is a mechanic has offered to repair it. After searching online it seems this is quite a common problem with Renault and the model in particular, and not something that should be happening after just 12000 miles!

Some might say that's the trade off for going from 14" to 17" rims.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

scruffbag1 wrote: »

Thank you to everyone for your advice - it is much appreciated! My friend's dad who is a mechanic has offered to repair it. After searching online it seems this is quite a common problem with Renault and the model in particular, and not something that should be happening after just 12000 miles!

Don't know about your area but in mine every street is almost a traffic calming measure nightmare, we have sleeping policemen in almost every street for a 4 mile radius, if you live in area like this then yes I would expect a ball joint or drop link or two to wear out faster than normal (non traffic calming measure) road use.


In my previous cars due to my area I replaced drop links and ball joints at every 5-6k miles using firstline parts.

Westmead_Fan

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

Don't know about your area but in mine every street is almost a traffic calming measure nightmare, we have sleeping policemen in almost every street for a 4 mile radius, if you live in area like this then yes I would expect a ball joint or drop link or two to wear out faster than normal (non traffic calming measure) road use.


In my previous cars due to my area I replaced drop links and ball joints at every 5-6k miles using firstline parts.

or the famous ones are the customers going down side roads in country lanes in the worst conditions around and wonder why suspension components don't last