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Am I stupid or is this just life?

Did they at least have the courtesy of giving you a reach around when they were boning you?
 
Hemi Rebel said:
I can tell you all right now, durango's are notorious for ball joints. They were recalled for it. I cant believe it only needs one. The recall is good for ten years from when it was put out. I will have to check tomorrow, but i think it came out in 03 or 04. So there is a possability it may be covered. Dont hold me to it though.
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The recall affected mine and Dodge replaced the lower 2 ball joints back in about 05-06, the other upper was replaced a couple years ago, so this one is the last to go. Let me know on the recall, thanks!

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thanks Prop. I really appreciate the time and info!

Decision made. I'm ordering the parts and getting them, or someone else! to install!. BOOM! I'll probably wind up with better parts installed to boot because I looked at the parts at Rock auto and am going with the ones you listed. I'm guessing i'll save $2-300 minimum! I just hope the ball joint holds together until i get the parts here and installed!
 
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RustyRatRod said:
I just went back and looked at the tickets from last week this afternoon. We JUST did four ball joints on an 04 Dodge 2500 4x4 and also installed customer supplied shocks. Sent it out for an alignment. The total was not over 800. We've done so much since, I couldn't remember without going back and looking.
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thanks Rusty. I've decided to go with the feedback i've rec'd here and am going to order the parts prop listed and get someone to install and align.

Kudo's FBBO!! BIG THANKS FOR ALL THE ADVICE AND ASSISTANCE!
 
i just encountered something just like this not too long ago...heres what happened ..:

im a big believer in keeping things local...and letting people that live near me do work that i need done instead of some some corporate conglomerate . my neighbor just across the street opened up a small garage and does state inspections. so i take my 2003 GMC truck over there for its yearly inspection. he calls me and tells me all the truck needs for inspection. ( keep in mind that i once had my Pa. inspection license back in the 80's ) .

he begins to rattle off things like tires need replaced.....idler arm is a bit loose....and it needed this and that. many things he listed were NOT REQUIRED FOR STATE INSPECTION ! WELL.... in reality it needed tires and i knew this. i let him do this work for the reason mentioned above, and i wanted to see how honest this guy actually was. he gives me a grand total of $1500.00. that right there told me that he is trying to send his to college on my dime. i took the truck to the dude i have been dealing with for years..AFTER i put new tires on it that needed replaced, and it passed with flying colors

i think this terrible economy were in at the moment has something to do with these ridiculous prices. times are tuff....work is down..... and alot of people are trying to make up the slack for lost revenue just for that reason.
 
I gotta go along with the pack here. I always buy my own parts and then have someone install them for me if I can't do them myself. One thing I had to farm out was the struts on my daughter's Cougar. The shop wanted $1,600 in parts/labor. I ended up buying the struts for $300 from Auto Zone, and paid a shop $280 to install the front ones and do the alignment. I checked craigslist for a mechanic who works on his spare time, found one, and he came to the house and installed the rear ones for $100. I wish I would have thought of using the craigslist route before I had the front ones done.

One thing I would add is if you've got a ball joint going bad, then it's only a matter of time until the other one goes. I would just go ahead and buy two and have them both installed. The shop is going to be taking everything off and apart to replace the tie rod ends anyway, so the cost impact should be minor. Plus you won't have to pay for another alignment when you get the other joint replaced.
 
I'd also consider learning to do the disk brakes yourself.

It's not that hard, and it's one of the most cost effective things you can do yourself to save money.

Lots of people get scared about working with auto brakes, but if you think about what you are doing, and make sure everything goes back together properly, there's really not a lot to be afraid of.

One of my buddies got quoted $400 to put rear pads on his volvo 240.

We bought pads at discount auto for $40 and I put them on in 20 minutes for $20 and a six pack.
Granted, the shop would have turned the rotors, but try really didn't need it, and the savings was over $300.
 
Lots of shops will not install parts that are customer supplied. We will, but we will not warranty them. It is up to the customer to get their own part warranted. Any mechanical repairs we do using parts supplied by us carries a 12/12 warranty.
 
Hemi Rebel said:
Just looked up the recall. It coveres 2000 to 2003 durango and dakota. Sorry. 99 just missed out.
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thanks for checking Hemi-Rebel, it was a shot in the dark, I guess the 1999 is safe...LOL... I was just curious more than anything, I haven't had any issues at all on my 1999 4x4 Dakota SLT...yet
 
RustyRatRod said:
Lots of shops will not install parts that are customer supplied. We will, but we will not warranty them. It is up to the customer to get their own part warranted. Any mechanical repairs we do using parts supplied by us carries a 12/12 warranty.
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It's just standard operating procedure for shops to not allow customer supplied parts. The main reason is because the shop is buying the parts wholesale and charging their customer the retail price for the parts + labor. Labor in our area is about $85 or so per hr. The shops simply can't be competitive/profitable and stay in business any other way. Another reason is that the shop doesn't have any control over the quality of the parts that the customer might bring in and they don't want to have any responsibility for installing an inferior part. I think everyone on this board knows that you can buy really crappy parts if you try to always get the cheapest stuff, of just don't know any better. There are many other reasons that shops want to source their own parts, familiarity, tech support, etc. etc. but those are the main ones. If I had to make my living managing a shop i would operate it the same way.
 
Very few shops will install parts you [the customer] provides basically due to liablitys,cheaply made parts and they are only making money in labor,the ones here that do i would not reccomend to my worst enemy [well maybe], i do my own repairs with few exceptions. You should ask at the parts house as somebody said [i would ask at several] just to get a general idea if the same name comes up then check into it. Watch out for Craigs List mechanics you may get a lemon. Ask around at car cruise ins/shows there has to be some folks there that would do it for you,folks ask me all the time.
 
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