Thank you for posting this alert. I took my 2006 3500 to a reputable universal alignment shop on Phoenix, AZ and was told I needed $850 in new balljoints and labor before they could do the alignment. Coincidentally there was another 2006 sprinter in that morning for an alignment appointment after me and the vehicle owner and I had a nice chat in the waiting room. I decided to take the vehicle home and visit the forum and read up before agreeing to the work and came across this thread and the supporting documentation. I called the shop back and spoke to the tech who examined my vehicle and sure enough he used traditional evaluation methods and then made his misdiagnosis and expensive recommendation. As polite as I was, he didn't appreciate me challenging his expertise. I asked him if he happened to work on the other 2006 sprinter that was right after me and he said yes. I asked how that inspection went and he said "the balljoints were bad on that one too." Since the vehicle is new to me and I was interested in knowing if there were any maintenance items I haven't spotted, I took it into Mercedes Benz for service today and they did the alignment and confirmed my ball joints in perfect working order. Unfortunately, I didn't get the contact info for the other sprinter owner (who mentioned being a forum user) and hope he too did some homework before agreeing to the work.
I appreciate this forums extensive resources and community. It is empowering to have such a vast knowledge base!
Jeremy
Jeremy--Fellow forum friend and after reading your post
"Defender of the lower control arm ball joint!"
Let me first state that the T1N Sprinter and its suspension ball joint perceived excess wear is not NEW !
In fact "If" you are old enough , worked in Europe in the auto repair trade, you would aware of the Vauxhall / Bedford
CF ball joint debacle! Fraught with MOT failures, customer "howls of foul" similar to the Sprinter no less !
It too was was available mostly in white, had a similar uses, & van following aficionados and rusted like a rotten old pear hence its nickname in the trade:-
The
"Luton Oxidizer" .plus its Italian equivalent the "Torino Oxidizer'!
Yertiz ! Gone but not forgotten
https://www.google.com/search?q=bed...1.69i57j0l2.9198j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
If you jacked the bloody thing up after a few thousand miles in service it had what was interpreted as "ball joint play" much like the Sprinter aka
Stuttgart Oxidizer . With so many annual MOT failures, & people getting "RED UN's" the Ministry issued a directive as the discarded "A" serviceable control arms piled up in repair shops' scrap bins .
In short, that directive was to put the van on a set of alignment turntables and plot the steering movement. Any substantial wear would instantly show up to the
trained operative when subjected to this test .
(trained operative! key words here!
Its part of why if some wear is observed on today's UK MOT test but not deemed excessive, is noted on record against your vehicle for the next annual MOT inspection. As "Observation"!
Now in the case of the Sprinter, although the construction of the ball joint has moved on since the 1970's with internal plastic encapsulation, however the same basic test applies!
Confirmed by their factory approved alignment rig with Rombus softwear .
Now if you are trained on that platform as an operative you should know that!
Going to an independent alignment shop has its cost benefits, and equally it has potential problems as you have have discovered being a consumer.
The business of alignment and steering inspections has been largely been driven down by de-skilling & paying operatives around $15 to $18 /hour.
The business frankly is price sensitive and has to be competitive,.
Here in the USA the buying public do not believe in having trained skilled specialty personnel in under-body chassis auto repairs, and demand low prices for these alignment service which for the most part are loss leaders in the march to up-sell replacement parts & repairs.
(get the ideas???)
Furthermore an Independent shop might not have the latest machinery with software updates nor service info for a Sprinter (Rombus etc) being expensive at about $70,000!
A dealer on the other hand is forced to have such alignment rigs in the shop and employ a higher level of service personnel, but the tariff will be higher as rule due to overheads.
I hope that gives you a more amplified vision of the prevailing auto repair business here in the USA.
Dennis