tsoleno

When did you replace your ball joints?
My 2008 work van has ~ 150,000 miles on it. Tire wear seems fine. If conditions seem right, when I reverse, front tire tracking seems a bit weird.

hanky

Whether it is good or not ,time for a thorough check of the front suspension and steering.. Hopefully ,only an illusion.

mountainmanjoe

Can you be more specific? What exactly are you seeing?

Triaged

Put a floor jack under the lower control, jack up the tire, and give it a wiggle.

Also, the steering geometry isn't really designed for reverse. It's designed for going forward and turning.

tsoleno

Driving there isn't any problem really. If say I'm backing on wet parking lot / drive that is a bit on the slick side, I'll get some squeal and the front tires seem to be trying to find their place. Last time that I had it in the air, I didn't get movement by gripping the wheel. The only work that I did was Idler and pitman arms and that was at 82,000 miles. It's been a while since an alignment though. This van is a 3/4 ton and loaded as well.

Triaged

Just having it in the air isn't enough. You need to get the load off of the ball joints. It must be jacked up by the lower control arm not the frame.

tsoleno

So up in the air it went - lifting it from the lower control arms. I don't get any play up /down nor side to side when I grab the wheel. Should I be using a bar at the joint? Maybe I have a ball joint fear because of all the CK pickups that had issues in my past. But then again, that was 30 years ago...
No one chimed in about actually replacing their ball joints, so I'm guessing they run a good long time now.

Triaged

Ball joints on a conventional suspension like a Chevy Express often don't show poor handling until they are very worn and quite wobbly when jacked up by the lower control arm. The lower one has all the weight of the vehicle on it that will take up any play. No side to side movement means your tie rod ends, drag link and pitman arm are likely all in good shape too. Sometimes it pays to have somebody else wiggle the tire while you go under and look for movement but that is normally after you feel movement at the wheel and are trying to narrow down the location that it is coming from.

Edit: the wheel tire and brakes are quite heavy so keeping the tire low to the ground and using a pry bar underneath it might be required.