Did I get the shaft?

ekim · 05-20-2004, 11:36 AM

I took my car to a little forgein car shop about 8 months ago for a service II. It turns out my ball joints also needed to be replaced. Now 9,000 miles later they have gone bad. I took it to the dealer for an oil service and they said they needed to be replaced. I was like WHAT THE????? I took it back to the little forgein car shop and they are indeed falling apart. The manager said there are other instances where this has happened. I do not know what what brand the ball joints were. Now he says there is a new and improved one, and that he will just charge me for the part $50.00 or $60.00. Is this fair?

blkongry · 05-20-2004, 11:45 AM

yeah, unfortunately you got kind of a bad deal. I have heard of this happening before, but the cases I have heard were on Fiat spiders. There are these 'lifetime sealed' ball joints that have been known to wear out with a short life span. It's not a rip off from the shop, it's a poor design of ball joint. It's a bad pick of the shop to use these joints, but the most a shop can do is warrant the work... not so much the product. You'd have to go after the manufacturer of the joint, but I have a feeling you'd have to get in line. Do you know what the brand of joint was that went in?

All in all you didn't get ripped off by anyone, other than you got a low quality joint that wore prematurely. Either way you look at it, it's a bum deal. Sorry to hear about it. Best you can probably do is order some quality joints yourself and have a shop install them... then you will know exactly what you are getting.

ekim · 05-20-2004, 02:35 PM

Well, I just got the car back. He admitted that the part was in fact defective. I still paid the $55.00. I did not feel like getting into an argument over $55.00. Something still bothers me about paying twice though ;-) The dealer said thay were not OEM, but the forgein part manager said they were. Thanks for your opinion.

blkongry · 05-20-2004, 03:16 PM

Man, it happens to all of us at some point. Yeah, it's a bit of a bitter pill to double pay for something. Did you see what maker of joints went in this time? The part manager may be wrong in thinking they are OEM, and they may be OEM 'comparable'... not the original manufacturer. I hope these last for you.

jamin325i · 05-23-2004, 10:22 AM

what is name of manufacturer of the defective ball joints and manufacturers name of the quality replacements?

thanks.