Ball Joints - A good Laugh

[taxx]

Well my DD (company truck) went into Ford yesterday because of a 4x4 problem, turns out it was the shift motor (which is what I suspected) it has 122,000 miles and proly never been in 4 low! Previous drives had no use for it. Anyway I had them check a few other things, has the old rattle due to the timing chain tensioners which I have been told is a Program not a Recal and ford only foots the bill for 80K miles so they want 300 and some to do it. Screw that, it doesn't hurt anything from what they are telling me and knowing htis vehicle since it was new it has always done it. But down to the moral of the story....

The service department wanted over $1000 to do the four ball joints! HA! HA! HA! funny huh? Well, I don't have the time to mess with it with the holidays and all, but since I am the comapnies accountant I couldn't write that check so I am gonna have it done at a local shop that does all our other work for probably half that...

Just thought you guys would see the humor in that.

 

[Doug]

yeah the dealer is great at ripping people off. i bought 3 quarts of 75w-160 gear oil and spent 55 bucks. this stuff better like absorb water or something at that price.

 

[Isles4evr]

A friend of mine took his 96 S-10 to the dealer for something, and they told him he needed 4 ball joints and it would work out to be 1200 parts and labor. I told him it was insane and to bring it to my house. Check all the ball joints to find out it only need the right lower and it took all of 25 mintues and 30 bucks in parts (got a new grease gun out if it too ).

 

[lynchintha93x]

lol...I just got new radius arm bushings and ball joints put on my 93x at Les Schwab tires...cost me like $275 installed...tell the dealer to piss off...the ones I hd installed are some hella nice polyurethane ones too...forget the name..but they arent the stock nylon p.o.s ones..now the car rides like it was brand new...next up hoefully a Duff tage 2 2.5" suspnsion and a 2" body and some 33's...we'l see...right now the car is bein stripped of the interior for a massive show stopping system...no b.s., will be amazing, should have pics aroung Feb or March, its gunna take forever, but it will be worth it.

 

[Hotweels]

hmmmm it cost me $300cdn To do upper and lower driverside balljoints on my X and that included buying a balljoint press for $220 lifetime guaranteed too. If any one is wondering OTC makes the press i bought and none of da local parts store had a loan a tool that would do the job but its a good thing i bought the tool cause it can be used for u-joint removal and install on cardan style joints and makes the job less traumatic.

 

[Doug]

My dad was telling me today about how he took his car to BJ's Wholesale club to get new tires. The "mechanic" put it up on the lift and grabs the left and ride side of the tire and turns it. the guy says "you need new ball joints this the worst ive seen in a while." my dad looks at the guy and then says "would you like me to hold the steering wheel while you do that?"

 

[Isles4evr]

Funny thing is that's not even how you check ball joints.

 

[Doug]

Originally posted by Isles4evr
Funny thing is that's not even how you check ball joints.

Oh i know and so does my dad.

 

[mattadams]

Man thats sad that mechanics do that. I know they do it because the average joe doesn't know crap, but it still sucks. I know I have saved probably thousands of dollars doing my own work, sometimes you gotta buy a specialty tool, but it'll pay off when you use it the next time . Kind of like when we did our hardwood floors and installed them ourselves, we bought a miter saw, a table saw, a router table, a new router, etc. all at the cost of somewhere around $800. Labor to install the floors would've been about $1200-1500. Plus we are constantly using those tools for other things now...

 

[tenikiwon]

Saturn Wiper Problem

My girlfriend called me almost crying about her Wipers not working and that I needed to go buy a motor and come fix it.

Went to AutoZone to buy wiper motor $60

Started working on her car and found the wiper moter was fine, but (to make a long story short) the part that connects to it was striped.

Thinking this pieces was part of the linkage I saw out for a new one. Saturn wanted $140 for the linkage. Called around and a junkyard said if I took it out $20. So out to the junk yard. Started taking it out, also noticed it needed to be removed for the motor replacement and in order to remove it you need to take the dash out 'cause some jackarse put threaded bolts as part of the linkage and you need to get the dash out to put the nuts on! Pissed I called saturn thinking maybe here year was different or it would but easier to only have to take 1 car apart.

Got the part at Saturn and looked at it. Think piece I needed wasn't there. I asked and he said it came with the motor. So he got a motor and showed me. Yup there it was. Ok, how much? $260.

Doing some quick math $260-$60 =$200 for a small chuck of brass. ARRGH!