Two tie rod ends and upper and lower ball joints are the parts. Said they would be oem parts.
$1300 for ball joints?
- Thread starter Ducati2
- Start date
Two tie rod ends and upper and lower ball joints are the parts. Said they would be oem parts.
There is technically 4 tie rod ends. One of them is the "draglink", which 2 are they replacing?
That is possible. Not a bad way to go.....I don't want to do it but if you still want me to do it, I'm going to make better than normal money.
I get fuck off and go away quotes all the time. Part of the reason I do all my own mechanical work and built my own shop.
People deserve fair compensation for work done. Exceptional people deserve to be rewarded for skill and expertise. Problem is we've all drank the Kool Aid on cheap Chinese goods, and our salaries haven't kept pace with inflation...so our sense of what's a fair price is all out of wack.
Ultimately the price for something comes down to what people are willing to pay.
Unfortunately paying less might mean paying twice.
All just a gamble.
-Mac
I do all my own work because I enjoy it and I like knowing where things stand with my vehicle. My Jeep needed a lot of work after I bought it. Nothing crazy but still work. I have saved many thousands of dollars over the years doing vehicle repairs myself.
Bring your own parts. Shops love to mark parts up. If they do accept your parts, they'll probably not want to warranty the work which is fine. I'd rather have the job *maybe* done twice out of my pocket than pay them insane markup on random parts for the fuck of it. Then again my opinion is swayed, as I do my own work.
I just saw the second page of this thread. Bring OEM parts off of RockAuto. If they fight you on it, ask em why. Because $1300 for ball joints is ridiculous and a fat chunk of that is probably in "parts".
BanjoJeep
Member
You may find some take offense at being called retarded, but not this fool, I fully accept my retardation. And to be fair, I did say I'd do it myself. So we're actually in agreement, which is cool. Also that rule is more about construction materials, I do agree that parts shouldn't make up 50% of the cost of most automotive repairs. So once again we find ourselves in agreement. That's three agreements in one post, pretty good I'd say. Cheers.
So a $7 thermostat should be $7 in labor? Very little disassembly, yet you couldn't even pay a first year apprentice's wage to change the part for $7 lol. That makes zero sense.
All I know is who I'm hiring to install my next full gasket set on a 4 liter.
We all hate shops that charge BS amounts for parts/labor but c'mon. That is the dumbest business strat for any shop lol
Around here it is hit and miss. I have one gear guy that supplies almost no parts. You tell him what axles he is working on, he gives you a list of parts to bring when you drop it off. Another one won't install any customer supplied parts.
I generally don't supply parts but I won't install any parts that I know are suspect out of the box like the ball joints I mentioned above. I've played that game with all of those and regardless of the dead slug's derision, they are all crap and his suggestion to consider them is just as bad.
Around me you need to build a relationship with the mechanic shop for them to be comfortable doing it. I have a local shop that has gotten work from my family for the past 15 years and they have no issue when I show up with parts already. Sometimes they ask what brand and I think that's because they don't want to install junk parts.
Yeah, that’s why in my comment (I brought up bringing your own parts) that some may refuse or not warranty the work. Say you bring them Dorman ball joints, they fail in a year, and the installer gets review bombed. Not Dorman. So I can understand why shops are weary of it. At the same time, if I bring them ACDelco complete control arms, I don’t see the issue. But it’s their shop and they have their reasons, so I can’t complain too much.
If any of this applied to the original poster's problem, he probably wouldn't be asking if 1300 was too much.
There are too many variables for that to be accurate. When I left the dealer world (20 years ago) labor was $130 to $100 in parts but this was a metric used by the manufacturer on warranty repairs. This was an average number for our area (Southern California). If they found a mechanic or dealer too far above that say $300 labor to $100 in parts. They may go in and do a warranty review or an audit. This obviously would be different depending on warranty codes for customer concerns and repair. It was to keep the dealers and employees in line.
Can you explain why you don’t replace u-joints in stock shafts?
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