My wife took our 03 f150 in for an alignment as front tires were showing a little wear, and shop told her lower ball joints were shot and they could fix her up for $650!! Ball joints are less than $50 each. Even though I really don't have time, I replaced them myself as I don't have the money either. Doesn't that seem a little steep? They wouldn't install the parts if I brought them in either. Curious what you all think . 

Price is not out of line considering what shop labor rates are anymore and they probably had an alignment on the estimate as well.

Just talked to the guy who bought my trailer and he said he was quoted over 1K to do ball joints on his old  square body style7.3 PS ford.

Edited April 14, 20168 yr by Wild and Free

Just used to doing my own and have a real hard time letting anyone else work on my vehicles. Just had a few things screwed up over the years. Nothing serious but very annoying, mostly not doing what they said they would. 

I hear ya loud and clear on that point. Very extremely rare I have someone do work on my own rigs either but sometimes timing is just not there and I need it done no matter what. lucky it has only happened a few times in about 20 years. It does work out nice having 3 regular drivers 2 being pickups and then in the summer my convertible Murano too so that takes some of the sting out of it.

Well if you figure $100ish for the alignment and at least $100 for parts. Looks like your left with about 2 hours per side at roughly $100 an hour. There's a reason I do my own work. 

$100 for alignment and all they can adjust is toe. I would like to do that myself, but one of the trade offs of renting in the mountains is we don't have any flat spots. Everything is on a slope. 

25 minutes ago, Royal Squire said:

$100 for alignment and all they can adjust is toe. I would like to do that myself, but one of the trade offs of renting in the mountains is we don't have any flat spots. Everything is on a slope. 

 

Go find a parking lot on a sunday.

There is a rest area a couple miles up the road. Good idea

9 hours ago, Royal Squire said:

There is a rest area a couple miles up the road. Good idea

 

If you need to hit a certain number of degrees on the alignment, check out my article... long winded but it has a table that converts inches to degrees for a two tape measure alignment.

I'll take a look at your article when I get a chance. Thank you