I have a 2008 HHR SS with about 90,000 Km (56000 mi)on it. It has the FE5 sport suspension.

I was told by the tire/alignment shop that the lower right front ball joint has play in it and it needs to be replaced before an alignment can be done. The trouble is, the ball joints are riveted on the control arm so the whole control arm needs to be replaced. As far as I can tell, the OEM part no. for that control arm is 25930724. A local parts shop quoted me a fair bit better price on a MevoTech CMS50174. The Mevotech is considerably cheaper and money is tight right now. I can also get it faster and I need it pretty fast.

It looks like the ball joint can be replaced on the Mevotech and I'm assuming that they can't be on the OEM replacement part but that's just a guess.

Has anyone used the Mevotech control arms? How do they compare to the OEM?

If I get the Mevotech then I'll have one OEM control arm and one aftermarket. Is that okay or is it recommended to always have both control arms the same?

If I wanted to go with OEM but wanted to have the option of replacing the ball joints later on, is it possible to replace my control arms with ones from a different year that has removable ball joints? If yes, what part numbers could I replace them with? Could I replace them one at a time or should I replace them both at the same time?

 

From https://www.chevyhhr.net/forums/comm...-thread-48833/

The parts books are wrong if they claim "fits all". The ONLY option we have found is from GM. Many have put the wrong ones on and have complained about noise and wobbling and completely unaware of the danger.

 

That MevoTech arm will NOT work on the SS.
Been discussed many, many times on this forum that the only replacement Lower Control Arm for the SS is the AC Delco brand specific for the FE5 suspension.
The SS arm is unique that the ball joint stud is slightly larger than the regular HHR arms. The MevoTech one you show is one of those that says "fits all models".
Therefore, that arm would have a ball joint stud that is too small for the SS. ( It would physically bolt on to the car but you wouldn't be able to tighten up the cinch bolt tight enough)

And before you ask. There is no known SS ball joint replacement. Only way to get the FE5 ball joint is to replace the entire arm.

 

this ^^^ is the truth. There are no substitutes, I tried this, and the knuckle ended up needing replacement, because of driving it like that.

 

The right LCA , Part number 25930724

from RockAuto

https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/...trol+arm,10401

the left LCA , Part number 25930725

https://www.rockauto.com/en/partsear...rtnum=25930725

is out of stock , you have to click on , notify me


These are the only two lower control arms for the FE5 , HHR SS suspension, the ball joint stub is larger in diameter that goes into the steering knuckle, and the FE1 or FE3 ones will fit, but not correctly, resulting in over torquing the pinch bolt and cracking the steering knuckles, I’ve had 3 SS owners bring their SS’s over to inspect for a Kline up front and guess what, the previous owner or the used car dealership they purchased from blew smoke up their skirts, and installed the wrong , cheaper parts.
Of course it’s your SS, and you can’t say we didn’t warn you, but please do order the correct parts, I did see a set from China be shipped to a friend who purchased from EBay vendor.
So, either your GM parts counter guy or RockAuto.

 

Darn. Thanks Donbrew and FMG, you saved me a lot of time and frustration, not to mention a lot of driving.

Is this just a 2008 SS specific thing or does it apply to all years of the SS with FE5 suspension?

Is it possible to swap in a different set of control arms from a later model HHR or Cobalt SS? I saw a video on replacing the ball joints on a 2010-ish Cobalt SS and the guy was talking about how the ball joints for the Supercharged and Turbocharged models are a bit different.Is the Cobalt SS suspension very much different than the HHR SS suspension? It would be nice if you could drill the rivets out of the 25930724 and 25930725 LCAs to remove the ball joints and replace them with one of those Cobalt SS ball joints. I guess if something like that were possible, someone would've figured it out by now.

 

In a word, no, the Cobalt LCA’s are different, no nobody makes bolt in ball joints for the FE5 HHR SS , and yes this applies to all three production years 2008,2009,2010.

 

The FE5 part numbers that donbrew provided are for 2008-2010 (HHR and Cobalt) SS turbocharged.

The confusion in the parts books, is because Cobalt had a version of the FE5 suspension on earlier Cobalts, notably, the SS supercharged. That FE5 had the smaller ball joint stud. Cobalt owners were upgrading to FE5 suspension by using these parts from the supercharged cars.

So the books see FE5 was available on earlier vehicles and thinks they are the same as the turbocharged parts.

If you need a new ball joint, you have to buy the part number provided in this thread. This is the only option. Sorry.

 

I phoned around to a a couple M dealers in town. They were all quoting me around the same price for the part. They said it had to come out of a City located about 3 hours north of here and they could overnight it. One said I couldn't have it until Monday because they're closed Saturdays and the other said they are open on Saturdays so I could have it tomorrow morning. Then I called a third dealer and they said they'd overnight it so I could have it tomorrow morning but they also dropped the price $75 below what the other ones were going to charge me. I said, "SOLD!". I'll have it tomorrow morning/

If the one side has worn out already, I imagine that it won't be that long before the other side wears out. I think 55,000 miles is a pretty short lifespan for such a part. I would have thought they would last a lot longer.

 

We always recommend replacing both sides, they like to wear out together. 12 years isn’t out of line for them to wear out, the right sides take more abuse from potholes, train tracked, speed bumps and such . I recommend ordering a left also, and change it later.