My car is a '97 and I pretty much assumed that after 11 year and 90K mi. that the front end would need a rebuild. A few months ago I had it on an alignment rack at a garage where we were trying to determine the source of a squeak. The mechanic said he couldn't detect any wear to speak of in my front end parts. It was kind of a surprise to me.

 

I replaced all mine in the front end about 2 years ago and most of them were pretty worn out. The car had about 115000 miles on it and it's a '93.

 

streets of nyc not that forgiving.. my 94 has 60k on it only and i need to change em. already went with the bilstein shocks and eibach springs, along with thicker sway bars. I like to upgrade when i have to replace. not sure if i can upgrade a ball joint, but while they are there was wondering if anything else i can have done to make it better.. any suggestions.

 

I think the MOOG replacement ball joint is a little bigger than the stock replacement, you could go with that. I think the secret for me is that the roads here are pretty good for the most part and since most of my driving is in town, the bumps I hit aren't at high speed.