2007 Mazda6 4 cylinder. I've been lurking, finally have something hopefully useful to offer.

But real quick...wayyyy back just before the world wide web I was credited as the founder of Team FC3S. If anyone knows what that was you'd put a HUGE smile on my face.

I could use that smile because... ball joints. By way of a wheel bearing. First bout was 12 rounds with the driver's side. I just gave up in round 2 of the rematch with the passenger's side. I'm not going to destroy my passenger ball joints trying and maybe failing to separate them. I am going to buy some time and get a whole knuckle from a junkyard.

But wait! I had hoped that the creaky steering would also magically resolve itself but it didn't and this is an important side point that might save a lot of time money and anguish. If you have a high pitched creak in the steering that you can feel in your fingers and is mostly driven by steering wheel torque and clock position it's the grease in the telescoping steering column. Just adjust it. Push it in and out a few times and see if that helps. If it doesn't, try re-greasing the splines inside that column. It's an hour job and there's a funny video on youtube for it.

Back to ball joints. Read everything you can find about this on forums, on youtube and you'll notice an odd breakdown and some accusations of "Liar Liar!!"

Some people have an easy time with this. A $7 pickle fork, a few taps with a sledge hammer on the flipped around nut and they're done. These are the lucky ones.

The unlucky ones have stories*** of killing 2, 3 pickle forks. Big sledgehammers sparking off the pickle fork. Trying this or that separator and maybe breaking that too. Trying both together. Air chisels, beating on the knuckle with the BFH. Trying a blowtorch and then the little sleeve comes out of the knuckle with the ball joint. Splitting that sleeve off to save the knuckle..... Pyrrhic victory where you're back on the road with bootless abused ball joints that die a month later (me). Worst of all is finally giving up and dropping the subframe to just replace the whole suspension. Weeping, getting a beer. It's all frustrating and ugly and it's not why we love wrenching on our own cars.

***My story is a polite youtube comment.

I've done one side badly and thrown in the towel on the other side. This is my theory. This is not about who has the best tool for the job, the most experience, or about who can swing a big hammer the hardest. IT'S THE CARS, GUYS. This thing breaks down at the car level, not the ball joint level. Some cars rolled out of the factory with 4 easy to separate ball joints and some cars rolled out with four little soul crushing bastard ball joints. This is why people argue about it on youtube. Some are lucky, some are Charlie Brown. Is it different car years, different factories, different shifts at those factories, different sleeves in the knuckles? I have no idea. I just believe this thing breaks down at the car level, not the ball joint level.

Granted, the 2 (Two???) ball joints are too close together and that makes it tricky but this is how I see the larger picture. I would love to spare some anguish. Some of us just need to buy a knuckle and move forward. I would love to hear others' thoughts on this. If you just say "You're wrong. It's easy to do" you are one of the "lucky ones" but you're also missing my point. You probably won't have a reason to read this post anyway.

Hey "unlucky ones" what do you think? If you're like me, the best advice I can give you is to find a salvage yard knuckle, put a $35 wheel bearing into it and move forward. That's my plan. Hope I pick a lucky knuckle.