how much should I expect to pay for replacement of the tie rods and ball joints....minus an alignment which I know I will need...??

I know the parts are super cheap, but the labor is rather large...I would guess

also, has anyone had their front strut bearings replaced....how much did that cost you at a shop??

 

Your looking at alot of labor hours at a shop to relplace both ball joints, both tie rod ends and both strut bearings. I would say, just estimating, about 5-7 hrs of labor for all of that. The strut bearings are going to be the same labor as replacing the struts which is around 1.5 hrs a side.

 

what do these items cost? considering changing out these exact same items on my max.

 

what is the easiest to do myself?

it looks like replacing the strut bearings is half the labor...I am going to wait on the strut bearings then and replace them when I replace my struts next.....is there any damage occuring from having bad strut bearings? in other words...is there a necessity to replace them soon?

the tie rods and ball joints I would think should cost me no more than $250? including parts and labor...

 

Good luck getting both ball joints and tie rod ends done for $250 parts and labor. Labor will be that much at least. What is the labor rate at the shop you use? Most shops are around $60 hr labor.

 

I'd kill to find that rate. I just found out the Midas in Naperville is at like $84/hr. I'm gonna pull my own tie-rod end and control arm and do the work I need (assuming I can with jacks)

 

the shop I take it to normally charges $40/hr....but he's my friends father, so he charges more along the line of $25/hr...and he doesn't mark up the parts at all...he gives me the prices that he gets....so he only makes labor on me...

 

If you have a special hook up on parts and labor then why would you post a thread asking how much it costs?

 

We charged $78 an hour which is a little on the higher side. But the Chicago land area has one of the higher automotive labor rates in the country.

 

well...I actually wanted to know the labor hours for a job like this...I phrased the question wrong...I shouldn't talked about it in dollars but rather labor hours...which you already answered....

 

It also depends if you're replacing the whole control arm or just having a new ball joint pressed in. While the joint itself is like $30, a new control arm is around $200. I was charged two hours of labor to replace one control arm, if that helps.

Good luck,
TOM

 

naw...I would just replace the ball joints...and tie rods...

I found a DIY write-up on here....hope it's not too hard...the DIY guide looks easy enough!

 

post the link.. i am interested

 

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....ight=alignment

 

FYI about the balljoint 101 thread:

Those instructions are for a 94 max. I believe most, if not all, 4th gen max has the ball joint pressed into the control arm instead of the 3 bolts mentioned in the writeup.

This basically means that the control arm has to be removed whether you are replacing just the ball joint or the entire control arm.

 

damn that search function