I have just bought my first skoda!! She is a felicia and runs great. Put her in for a mot yesterday and she has failed on her offside ball joint. The mot er said that the ball joint is riveted on to the wishbone you would have to replace them both. I am thinking of doing this myself and would like some advice and the easy way to do it lol The garage wanted 115 quid to do it. Any feed back would be appreciated cheers.

Buy a ball joint, remove the arm, grind the rivets down and knock them out, bolt new ball joint to the arm.

The easy way would indeed be to change whole wishbone. Would most likely have to come off anyway as the rivets can be a right bugger to remove.

Saves a huge amount of faff for the sake of an extra tenner or so.

as above, on those they are rivveted on at the factory, when you buy a new track control arm (wishbone) they come supplied with a new ball joint which will also be rivetted on and will come with new bushes too... you can buy the ball joint seperately from most mainstream suppliers too and this is a bolt on type so you just drill or grind off the rivets then put the new one in.

from my local motor factors a new bolt on ball joint is about £15, the whole track control arm assembly is about £40 which includes a ball joint and new bushes..

if you do get a whole new wishbone bear in mind there are 2 different types, essentially they are both the same except one has an extra hole to take the anti roll bar connecting link for models which have an anti roll bar fitted, you can use the anti roll bar type arm on a car which doesnt have an anti roll bar so i only ever buy these type

I'd replace the balljoint and keep the wishbone. Pattern ones are crap compared to Skoda originals, they last nowhere near as long as the OEM ones which will take a massive amount of abuse without bending.

Think I ll grind off the rivets on the ball joint and just replace that seems a shame to replace the wishbone when there's nothing wrong with it thanks for the replys.