AveryR

Yup I paid upfront so he's actually doing all of this now. He pointed out the ball joints, where the knuckles are, needed to be replaced and that they wiggled slightly when he put a crowbar underneath the tire and wiggled them on both sides (it barely moved). He also said the upper arms needed to be rebuilt and of course charging the ss and balancing the tires. And the bolt too. He got the parts from teraflex.

mpkelley20

I honestly don;t think you got screwed completely. The ball joint swap overall cost is in line with what others would pay a shop to do it. Like I said, probably paid too much for the ball joints but you are proabably paying less for the labor.

The Steering stabilizer is a joke. You can buy a Teraflex SS for about $50 new. Takes 10 minutes to install...maybe 15. No need to "charge" the one you have, cheaper to buy new.

Balancing tires is usually $25 max per tire so $125 should be the most. But I think you have 40's so maybe it takes longer?? Still, not $300 worth of service. Do you have beadlocks??

Rebuilding joint ends can take some time because arms have to come off plus the cost to buy the new parts...so labor there isn't terrible. But I would want a better understanding of what they mean by rebuild. Are your arms Teraflex?

I think the places you should question are the tire balance and get more info on the rebuild.

mpkelley20

Ok....just looked at your build in your profile. You got some mad build going with the TF long arm and tire/wheel combo.

While I don't know specifically what replacing parts off of that suepsnsion would cost, I can assume it is more than a bolt on system. So either the place doing your work sees your build and assumes you have tons of money to spend or the parts really are that expensive. Find out what parts they are buying to fix/replace stuff you have now then we can assign a "value" on the labor. I'm guessing you are not getting screwed much here at all.

Others may think that becuase they do the work themselves but if someone spent 10 hours in their garage working on their Jeep, you have to consider that time is money. And if you don't have the time or skill to do the work yourself (many of us don't) then paying someone to do it is the only options.

Labor rates around my area can vary widely. $85 on low end and around $140 on high end. So keep that in mind.

Davoarts

I took my jeep to Firestone for an alignment and balance and they came back saying I needed all new ball joints and the pitman arm drag link rod-end was shot. Quoted me $1700, at which point I laughed in their face and walked out the door. I can do that in my driveway with $200-300 worth of parts and about 3 hours if I work fast, and then have enough money left to buy two new bumpers and a few cases of beers. Turns out all of those parts are good actually, and that my tires are bad (running washboard gravel roads at 40 mph tore them apart after they already had almost 40k on them).

Point being, if you don't mind paying what the shops charge to fix your vehicle, then go ahead and let them do it, be done, and drive happy. However, once you start wrenching, you'll never be able to justify paying another shop to do work on your jeep again (unless you have a warranty, but that's another war, and another thread). I could tear my suzuki samurai down to the last bolt and put it back together (actually dd that with a few vintage motorcycles), the jeep is a little more complicated (and parts more expensive), but I'll tell you, my gf has a honda civic and I prefer to pay the dealer to fix it rather than try it myself, no dang room to work on anything under the hood, and we have come to terms with the cost.

Anyways, you might see if anyone in your area would mind helping you out to have a wrenching weekend, maybe save some money, drink a few, learn some new tricks and make some friends while your at it, you know, perpetuate the Jeep culture that should be.