I changed the driver's side on my Bravada by hand (no air or power tools) and it was a major pain. Called around the next day and was quoted $250 (including alignment) to complete the job on the passenger side. Needless to say, I jumped at that price! It wasn't worth my time to do it myself. I also think the new guy that quoted me that price didn't keep his job very long!

 

Yeah I would have jumped at that quote as well. I have no air tools and the only power tool was the drill to drill out the rivets, but so far it is going a lot smoother on the driver side (I did the passenger side first).

 

yea swartlkk that price by far would have gotten that guy fired i called around out here in az and got prices of 1000.00 for parts,labor and an alignment i was like yea i will do it myself when the time comes

 

I had a shop just try to charge me $330 for one lower ball joint and an alignment.

 

ouch that is like committing a crime $330.00 are they serious whoa

 

He said like 90 for the ball joint, 75 for the alignment, and 2 hours labor.

 

thats just ridiculous on price like i said though if you don't have the tools to do it yourself start a price war alot of shops will meet or beat competitor's price.

 

$90 was too much for ball joint. Advance retails Moogs for $71 a piece. $75 seems close on the alignment. And like I said, the time estimate I got was a little over 2 hours for lowers on both sides at $55/hr.

71
+ 75
+ 83
------
$ 229

And that's with retails prices for a Moog. A shop should be able to do better on parts prices than retail. $330 for one ball joint sounds like they threw out a high number because they realize it's a pain and not worth it for them. I once took my Wife's old '95 Grand Am to a Firestone (NEVER AGAIN) to get inspected and they manage to rack up an $800 bill to get it to pass. The only thing that really needed to be replaced was an inner tie rod end which is a pain to replace. I think they just overpriced so that wouldn't have to deal with it and could make money off other customers on jobs that were easier and could get out the door quicker. And heck, if I ended up paying the $800 or you ended up paying the $330, then they made some extra cash. Win/win for them!

 

I ended up doing my ball joint myself. I had to take the front axle out in order to get the lower joint out. Once I got it out, I replaced the upper one too, since it was also original. It only cost me about $50 for the upper and lower with my discount from work. It took me about 4 hours to do both.

 

I went around and got estimates and talked people down and all that and the cheapest i could get someone to was 237.99 plus tax,which actually ended up the first place i went to.