As I understand it if you raise the car on the front arms that takes up play in the lower ball joint you can have up to 50 tho play in these joints ( like the old VW beetle ones ) if you have the car with the front arms hanging free you will get lots of movement and think your ball joints are shot in the UK we have to have an MOT every year that includes front end inspection lights rust all sorts of things including a brake test and many inspectors fail my Barracuda on lower balls until I show them the correct way to test them acording to the workshop book hope this helps

Intersting! I'll check them both ways in the morning. It could explain why I could not duplicate the looseness that I saw when the car was on the shop's rack.