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Performance Upgrades - Maintenance - Modifications - Problem Solving - Off-Road - Street Trucks. Covering the Explorer, ST, Sport, Lincoln Aviator, Sport Trac, Mercury Mountaineer, Mazda Navajo, Ford Ranger, Mazda Pickups, and the Aerostar. Featuring H.I. - Human Intelligence.
My local dealer here in Connecticut just quoted $845 to replace the upper ball joints and align my 98 Explorer XLT (~152,000 miles).
This seems rather excessive to me. What would be a reasonable charge for this service?
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if you are gonna have someone do the ball joints might as well get all 4 done. it won't cost you anymore on the labor then at least you are buying peace of mind. I would go and check other shops in the area. Cause yeah that price is a bit much to answer your question.
if you are gonna have someone do the ball joints might as well get all 4 done. it won't cost you anymore on the labor then at least you are buying peace of mind. I would go and check other shops in the area. Cause yeah that price is a bit much to answer your question.
4.3 hours for JUST the upper ball joints?!?! That's more than 2 hrs per side!?!?! For a pinch bolt and two control arm bolts?!?! You gotta be kidding!??! No wonder it costs so much!!
Well i started mine and holy crap, is the ball joint tool ever confusing!!! im currently at work (luckily i work at a parts store and we have a shop in the basement we can leisurely use after hours)
so yeah, im working until close then i go back to work downstairs, in the process of changing uppers (going to the one piece passenger side upper) and two lowers along with lower control arm bushings (the torsion bar is absolutely insane to work with) i havent got it out of the control arm yet and if i cant, i will just be doing the bj's and upper arms.
I think thats a decent price for a dealership but you should be able to find a shop that can replace the upper, lower and outer tie rod ends for less than that. Atleast in Indiana I could, you being in Connecticut I'm not sure but I would check around. Not to mention theres great tuitorials in the forum if you think you can do it and have the right tools, theres even a video for the lower balljoints I think.
To get the torsion bar out of the LCA hex, a pipe wrench will do it... a 4-footer works well.
The last time we worked on some from the factory here in our lab (we had a stop-ship on the Sport-Tracs due to a weak hex tube in the LCA) I had to use a 4-ft pipe wrench with a 3-foot cheater pipe on it to twist it loose. It shouldn't ordinarily take that much force.
I have the same problem with my ford explorer .(replace leeft and right upper control arm and ball joint .)
What i did was purchase upper control arms with ball joint , from www.amzon.com .
I paid $140. include shipping and tax for both moog (brand name).
and i paid a mechanic $85. plus tax
the total amount is $225.00.
When ever you take a car to a dealer u will always pay 3times the cost
good luck
I had no experience whatsoever with stuff like that, all I had done before is brakes, oil, trans fluid change, etc. I was quoted over 1000$ for balljoints w/o an alignment.
I spent under 280$ in parts on Rockauto.com (HIGH QUALITY MOOG parts at that, not chinese eBay parts) Upper control arms for both sides, lower balljoints, AND tie rod ends. I did ALL of them in under 3 hours with the BJ press rented from AutoZone...
Not a hard task at all when you use the writeup.
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