[Rob740]

Hi,

So around 3.5 years into the ownership of my V50 (D5 R-Design) and the mileage has gone from 31k to 115k. The car has been pretty impressive in terms of reliability and other than servicing has only really needed front wheel bearings, tyres all round (a few times) and brake pads/discs.

At the last service they mentioned the ball joints needed doing soon. I've noticed there are 2 sizes available 18 and 21mm. Is this the size of nut on the ball joint? if not how do I measure them to check? Also I think the ball joints are the original ones as they are riveted to the bottom arms. I take it I can drill the rivets out and replace the ball joints on their own? I'm aware that you can get the bottom arm assembly but I did the bushes on them last year so don't want to replace them if I don't need to.

Also one of the keys has stopped operating the remote locking. I can open the car manually with it and still start it (sometimes causing the alarm to sound) but for now I'm using the second key as my main one. I've heard different things about the cost/procedure for fixing this. Anyone have ideas as to getting it sorted?

Many thanks

Rob