Dropped Bessie off at the shop this morning to have the front end aligned and 2 new tires put on. The 2 that were on there were terribly worn on the inside third. Shortly after I got back to work I received a call from said shop. "Mr. Hughes, we have bad new for you..." Well, I was informed that the Maverick needed new control arm assemblies and ball joints, that they couldn't align the front end until after they were installed, and all together it would run me between $800 and $1000! Yikes! What has this $900 car gotten me in to? I called my wife's brother, who worked on it for me earlier and got the motor running like a top, installed new shocks, etc. and told him what they said. He told me to get the parts and bring it out on Saturday morning and we would take care of it. The parts brand new from O'Reillys were right around $70! Oy what a day. Wish me luck for Saturday... CommieHook
I think I'd also find a new alignment shop. Sounds to me like they thought they had a fish on the hook.
I completely agree! They saw that you had an old car and jacked the price up on you!! :16suspect I'm glad that I can work on some things still and have a good HONEST mechanic that I trust for what I can't (or just don't want to) do anymore. -Scott H.
There are other shops that will do the allignment after you get the parts installed. You might just check to see if you DO ACTUALLY need all the parts. They might have just been selling you extra stuff.
If you dont have a close relationship with a mechanic you know and trust, never hesitate to re-check anything they "inform" you you need. Ive sadly been the witness to many a lovely scam passed off on the non-car savvy from shops and independent mechanics. Most recently, my poor grandma (age 89) paid EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS for a new alternator and radiator. They told her she needed them, though I can tell you that she sure as hell didn't. If I wasn't 2,000 miles away, I would have rung someone's neck. Good luck!
I don't know guys. When I dropped it off I told the guy to please let me know before they replaced anything because I was on a tight budget, and that I only paid $900.00 for the car in the first place. So surely he didn't throw that price out there just thinking that I would go for it. Also, he told me that they would repair the front end "if I could even manage to find the parts anywhere", almost like he thought that they would be hard/impossible to come by. But I called our O'Reillys and they had them in the store by noon the same day! Was he just under the wrong impression about parts for an older car and then labor to install them on an older car? Maybe they just didn't want to work on it at all? By the way, can anyone guess the national brand store that I took it to? CommieHook
Just remember cheap parts are cheap parts. When buying suspension and steering parts, MOOG is more money, but well worth it. Some white box parts (usually store brands) only last about a year....
+1 A shop tried to do that to me once, when I took my 82 stepside 4x4 in. I bought all the new parts, installed them myself and took it back for them to align the front end. They werent happy about that.
When I worked in the Ford dealership I really hated stories like this. It only takes one jerk to make all techs look bad!
