I have been hearing an intermittant clunk in my front end which my local (non-Ford) garage diagnosed as bad upper and lower ball joints. He quoted me $675. A Ford garage quoted me $600 and another independant quoted $375!! This kinda scares me. Any one else? I fear that a savings of $2-300 could end up costing me that much again on down the road. Like if the factory ball joints went 80,000, I would assume the Ford replacements might go that far. But if the low-ball guys work lasts 40k, I am really looking at a $750 ball joint replacement, right? (40,000 miles times two at $375 a pop)

How difficult is it to replace all 4 ball joints? I am not totally green, but I am no expert either. Is it something I really want to mess with. I am sure I would have to have an alignment afterwards regardless of what I do. I think I have just talked my self out of doing it myself. I really don't have the time (or don't want to take the time). The weather is getting good and i don't want to spend a Saturday in the garage.

So, back to the low-ball guy. How can I be sure I am comparing apples to apples?

Thanks

Big

PS I searched and did not find much speaking to ease of replacing all four b-joints and only found one reference to cost - $6-700 on a Ranger or BII.

 

Wether you have someone do it or di it yourself make sure they replace the factory non-greasable ball joints with ones that are greasable.

 

I just had all four of mine replaced. I had them get the MOOG greaseable joints too! You can call some parts stores and get the price for joints and then factor in about 1.5 hours of labor for each. That should help with the cost estimate, I guess.

I do not know the actual cost as one side the insurance company paid for and the other side my extended warranty paid for. It's been well over 40 days since my wreck and my truck should be ready today. I'll get the bill and tell you what they charged "me".

It's not an overly complex job but does require the proper tools.

 

I just had mine replaced at a little over 100k miles, by a Ford dealer, and paid about $900. But I'm in Chicagoland where labor is known to be high.

By complaining about how high his estimate was, I talked him into including a front wheel bearing lub job. As long as he had to take them apart, it wouldn't add much work.

OldChap

 

If its a 4 wheel drive there are no bearings to lube. They are sealed units

 

I just had mine done on a 99 F350, 103K miles. The parts from NAPA were $212 with tax and the labor was 180. It took the shop about 2 1/2 - 3 hours to complete. The shop is next door to my business so I might have gotten a better rate. Another shop down the road quoted me $500 - 550, alignment included. The one that did the work is a heavy equipment repair so they didn't have the alignment equipment so I have that to factor in yet. They did get the joints with the grease zerks so it should last another 100K miles.