HI My Doblo has just failed mot on nearside front suspension arm has excessive play in a ball joint. He showed me offending ball joint and said that as it is riveted in I will probably need a complete suspension arm! Is this correct. My normal parts supplier GSF list a lower ball joint .How do I this. do I grind or drill out the rivets? Help someone must have done this job and I haven't found any info on forum.I have loads of much appreciated help with my seicento, so any help with this would be much appreciated.
Thanks
I have a 2005 1.3 multijet family the older version with lower opower.

you can get a replacement ball joint kit, you drill the old rivets out and replace with the bolts that come with the kit, not to hard a job, euro car part do a kit for about £10 (think a full arm is about £50)

I've just replaced the arms and top mounts.
Arms were £58 for the pair.
Not sure how easy it would be to replace the ball joint - with the thing being rivetted on, experience (sod's law) tells me these rivets will be tougher than any drill bit.
However, it's got to be easier to replace the ball joint than the whole arm.

HI Thanks I've ordered the ball joint and will attempt to drill/grind the rivets off. I'll post how it went so it may help someone else.
thanks

I've ordered a new ball joint and plan to drill/grind offf the rivets. I will post how I get on
Thanks

Hi update. I have the ball joint and have so far spent hours trying to get the rivets out. I have one out . I've nearly drilled the second one out and the third one is still to go. It's a real pain. Its dark now ,I will get it done tomorrow and if your skint then it saves a few quid ,but given the choice I'd go for changing the whole suspension arm.
Thanks

I had to have my front wishbones done a few months ago.

The mechanic said that it was possible to get the bushes/joints? out, but it was so laborious and time consuming that it was cheaper to just change the wishbones.

I am totally incapable of doing anything myslelf so the decision was made for me.

But my car has needed a lot of expensive replacememts recently.

I've done both mine in the last 18 months and the longest part of the job was getting the arms off (about 30 minutes) and about 10 minutes to grind out the rivets so not too bad at all. Of course the advantage is that when/if I have to replace the ball joints next time the job will be much quicker due to not having to remove the complete arm.

update got ball joint off, but new ball joint is wrong !!!!!!!! I'll have to wait.I took so long as I did it in situ. sounds like I should have removed the arm and done it on a bench ! much easier