Fitting new front wishbones
 

Hi guys
With the weather so mild it’s great to get and do the jobs on your car that you have been putting off.
Today I decided to replace both front lower suspension wishbones so as to make certain that it sails through the dreaded MOT.
Just a word to the wise folks make sure you get the right ball joint, as there are two for my 2008 V50 an 18mm & 21mm ..
The guy at the parts counter looked up my vehicle by registration and reported that they were 18mm, great, back home and stripped the old one out with little fuss brilliant I thought, new one replaced all torqued up no problems until I was tightening the bottom ball joint, yep you guessed it, wrong size despite what the parts guys computer says, they are 21mm. Yes I should have checked the new part with the old one before fitting, something I will do in future to be sure.
So save yourself some heartache guys of having to strip it all out again something I really hate doing.
2008 V50 shows up as 18mm so please beware and double check.

According to information here in Sweden there is a chassis number that determines the dimension of the balljoint:

Up to chassis no. 214682 18 mm balljoint
From chassis no. 214683 21 mm ball joint

The change took place in 2006 ruffly

Sorry for bad grammar ;)

I just had the same uncertainty with ball joints the other week. I ended up getting a set of each size (didn’t replace the whole wishbone) and it was 21mm on my car too.

My 2005 car is definitely 18mm ball joints. Replaced mine twice now.

feb 2006... 18mm

you can ask your local volvo dealer on the phone when you have your VIN number available.

I believe there was a 15mm balljoint version too on the early US models

sorry to revive an old thread, looking to do mine and it should /will be 21mm (it's MY2011 D3 V50), i stuck my vin in on skandix.de and it shows 21mm ball joints. looking on Febi group and zf parts (lemforder/trw) they also show 18mm. so worth double checking guys.