Price Drop on Rebuild Kits for Dynatrac JK Heavy-Duty Ball Joints and Install Help
10-09-2015, 10:45 AM
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Price Drop on Rebuild Kits for Dynatrac JK Heavy-Duty Ball Joints and Install Help
We’re sorry to hear the difficulties that some customers have had with our products recently. This concerns us a great deal. At Dynatrac we pride ourselves in offering the best products AND customer service to the off-road community. To that end, we’ve looked at what was said, did some testing, and have some answers that should help.
To anyone trying to reach us for help, if email or private messaging through a forum or Facebook doesn’t get you a prompt enough response, please call our tech line at 714-421-4314, during business hours, to reach someone. FB and forums are more difficult and usually take longer for us to respond to and provide tech help.
Our current suggested retail price for a rebuild kit for Dynatrac JK Heavy-Duty Ball Joints is $196. That provides the materials needed to rebuild a complete set (upper and lower, driver and passenger side) on one axle. Based on your comments, we agree this is too high. We appreciate everyone’s input on this! After reviewing our costs we are going to lower the JK rebuild kit price to $129.00. We would go lower, but all these parts are made in the USA, and as such cost more than imported parts.
As for how long it takes to rebuild an axle set, we were very surprised to see someone say 16 hours. We felt it was important to thoroughly test this to be certain of how long the job really takes. We had someone with mechanical experience rebuild them and it took 1.25 hours to do one side (upper and lower). Then we gave someone who had no mechanical experience, and never done it before, the same instructions and tools to do the job…he completed the same work one side (upper and lower) in just under 2 hours. That included removing and replacing the wheel bearing, shafts, knuckles, and cleaning of parts. Our test axle was also caked in mud. So that would be a maximum of 4 hours for a novice to do both ends of an axle, upper and lower.
We saw recently in another thread a mention of a special tool required for rebuilding our ball joints. Attached is a picture of all the tools we used, including those to remove the wheel bearing, knuckle, and axle shafts. As you can see, they are all common tools. The only thing unusual was an old used bolt, and a nail. We used these to prove that an improvised tool is quite easy to find and very effective if you are missing a punch or drift.
Someone mentioned how long it takes the glue for the new boots to dry…in our test today, it bonds in about 10 minutes, and was completely dry in 30 minutes and ready to go.
There are many things that can cause ball joints, either stock or aftermarket, to wear out at different rates. Contamination (e.g. mud/water), alignment issues, tire issues, bent housing issues, improper installation technique, and other factors that will cause a ball joint to wear out faster than expected. How much and how hard you use your JK and the severity of the off-road environment you drive in is also an obvious factor. The vast majority of our customers tell us they have many tens of thousands, and even over 100K miles, on our ball joints with no issues.
It is impossible to predict each customers experience because of all the variables in off-roading. We will help anyone who has a problem, and honor the warranty if we see a defect. Even if we don’t see a defect, we will do our best to help any Dynatrac customer that feels dissatisfied. We want all Dynatrac customers to be happy and satisfied with our products. That is our policy and practice.
To anyone trying to reach us for help, if email or private messaging through a forum or Facebook doesn’t get you a prompt enough response, please call our tech line at 714-421-4314, during business hours, to reach someone. FB and forums are more difficult and usually take longer for us to respond to and provide tech help.
Our current suggested retail price for a rebuild kit for Dynatrac JK Heavy-Duty Ball Joints is $196. That provides the materials needed to rebuild a complete set (upper and lower, driver and passenger side) on one axle. Based on your comments, we agree this is too high. We appreciate everyone’s input on this! After reviewing our costs we are going to lower the JK rebuild kit price to $129.00. We would go lower, but all these parts are made in the USA, and as such cost more than imported parts.
As for how long it takes to rebuild an axle set, we were very surprised to see someone say 16 hours. We felt it was important to thoroughly test this to be certain of how long the job really takes. We had someone with mechanical experience rebuild them and it took 1.25 hours to do one side (upper and lower). Then we gave someone who had no mechanical experience, and never done it before, the same instructions and tools to do the job…he completed the same work one side (upper and lower) in just under 2 hours. That included removing and replacing the wheel bearing, shafts, knuckles, and cleaning of parts. Our test axle was also caked in mud. So that would be a maximum of 4 hours for a novice to do both ends of an axle, upper and lower.
We saw recently in another thread a mention of a special tool required for rebuilding our ball joints. Attached is a picture of all the tools we used, including those to remove the wheel bearing, knuckle, and axle shafts. As you can see, they are all common tools. The only thing unusual was an old used bolt, and a nail. We used these to prove that an improvised tool is quite easy to find and very effective if you are missing a punch or drift.
Someone mentioned how long it takes the glue for the new boots to dry…in our test today, it bonds in about 10 minutes, and was completely dry in 30 minutes and ready to go.
There are many things that can cause ball joints, either stock or aftermarket, to wear out at different rates. Contamination (e.g. mud/water), alignment issues, tire issues, bent housing issues, improper installation technique, and other factors that will cause a ball joint to wear out faster than expected. How much and how hard you use your JK and the severity of the off-road environment you drive in is also an obvious factor. The vast majority of our customers tell us they have many tens of thousands, and even over 100K miles, on our ball joints with no issues.
It is impossible to predict each customers experience because of all the variables in off-roading. We will help anyone who has a problem, and honor the warranty if we see a defect. Even if we don’t see a defect, we will do our best to help any Dynatrac customer that feels dissatisfied. We want all Dynatrac customers to be happy and satisfied with our products. That is our policy and practice.
