After spending 16 yrs working as a technician for one of the "Big Three", my personal opinion would be, since you are not replacing it because of wear but because of the problem you described, changing just the one joint would be acceptable. Replacing it because of wear would be a different story. Appears rdklincorporated has started you in the right direction and you might also want to find out if the joints are, by some chance, matched sets. Hope I helped a little.