I had just unloaded my 375 yesterday and hadn't even gone a mile. I was making a tight turn on a bumpy trail at about 2mph when I heard a loud TING! I drove slowly and wiggled the steering and it felt ok, but the noise made me nervous. I stopped and looked and on the front left upper ball joint, the cap was sticking up. Apparently, the ball had pushed the cap up and the noise I heard was the cap being forced over the threads, or maybe the ball coming up through the c-clip.

My cat has less than 100 miles since the recall, so it could be one of a several of things. 1. improper installation of the new ball (maybe the cap wasn't torqued or tightened properly. 2. Defective new ball joint
or 3. Weak ball joints. 4. Poor overall front suspension design. I wonder if they have put too much angle on the front susp. to gain ground clearance? I've noticed pre-2002 cats don't seem to have as much angle on the A-arms when sitting on level ground.

I love the machine, so I'm hoping it was number 1. I'm quite leery of those things now. I'm going to let them repair it, but if it happens again, this thing is gone. I'm not about to kill myself on this if it has such an achheles heel.

Anyone else experience this? I havn't been all that hard on the machine. Mostly trail riding and some sand dune running. I've barely ever had it in deep mud or anything I think would put alot of stress on that ball joint.

I'm hoping its an isolated incident and can be fixed permanently. If it happens again, I'll get something with Macpherson struts up front, like a Prarie 650. I'd hate to give up my cat, though. When its working, there's nothing out there like that ACT suspension.

 

No troubles here, I think you may have just been unlucky. Too bad it ruined a good day of trail riding.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

 

I have replaced all 4 ball joints on my 98 454. Left side top & bottom failed while my son was riding it. Luckily he was going very slow at the time and was not injured. This happned with about 3000 miles on machine. I changed the right side this spring when I noticed some play in joints, didn't want to take any chances.
I know of 3 other AC's in this area that have had ball joint failure. All happned at slow speeds, no injuries. You should also check to see if your front wheels are rubbing A-Arms. This has been a problem on some newer models.
Your repair shop may have used old model ball joints by mistake! The joints I put in the right side of are new stronger joints.

 

Fortunately, there's no evidence of the wheel rubbing the a-arm. I'm taking it to my dealer tomorrow to fix the ball joint, however. I'm letting them know that they had better inspect all of them again and make sure this does not happen again.

 

Wow! The right lower ball joint went out on my Uncle's 98 454 just last week. WTF???

 

Its that time of year.

 

I think that the repair that was done was not up to spec.I think the mech did not check that the cir clip was properly in place.I put 2 new ones on my machine and it is easy to get it wrong,,,but not if you are doing it everyday.My wife has the 375 and I perfer it to my 500 man.My next one will be a auto thats for sure.

 

Is there any way to tell the new ball joints from the old?

 

I took it back to the dealer today and they said they'd never seen one with a problem like that. They think the mechanic did not install the cap correctly, or the C-clip was weak. They are going to replace the whole joint just to be sure.

I can't wait to get back on it. I enjoyed my little Polaris, but it just doesn't go through the radical stuff like the Cat, and it doesn't have the power. I really missed the engine braking, too, on the really steep downhill parts of the trail.

 

I had my ball joints replaced last week and went riding that afternoon
No problems sofar!! But I will be checking the front end frequently.
I hope yours was due to poor instalation. Good luck!

The riding I did that afternoon included making new trails on my freinds property. I put it through a good test of going over huge
downed trees, through creek beds pushing small trees down and steep hill climbing it was just overall rough terrain. The A/C could not
be stopped!! Gotta love it!!