So today I took the xjr to the local Tires Plus to have the wheels balanced and a front alignment. I had a slight vibration on the highway and thought I could get it fixed fairly easy. I ended up leaving without any work performed due to the following problems:Both upper ball joints need replacing
Both inner tie rods need replacing
Both front wheel bearings need replacing
Rear lower pivot bearings need replacing ( yes, both sides)


All of this can be performed by them for a low price of.......$2870.34


Now, all of this detective work was conducted while my car was on the lift and I was in the waiting room. After calming down and clearing my head, I decided to drive to All Jaguar. A highly recommended repair shop 1/2 mile from my house. I showed them the repair estimate and they immediately put my car on the lift to check it out.
Yes, SOME of the work needed to be done, however they showed me what the real problem was. All 4 of my factory rims are bent. The took the time to show me what needed to be fixed and quoted me @ $700 to perform the repairs to to the car and gave me the contact info for a local wheel straightening company that they use. If you need an honest repair shop in the central Florida area, go to All Jaguar. I will be dropping my car off to them next week to be fixed.

 

You know every single time I take a vehicle to have tires installed, I am told I have bent rims... and I must say... After all these years and all these vehicles... I have never fixed a single rim. I'd be more concerned about the ball joints being 100%. Also, the wheel bearings allow you to shake the wheel if they're bad, much like bad ball joints will do depending on which direction you can rock the wheel when the vehicle is in the air.

When I get told 2 different things by 2 different places I always go to a third and then I ask them how they arrive at a particular diagnosis over another.

Good luck!

 

could someone please explain to me how you guys bending your rims in Texas and in Florida? arent your roads smooth? i can understand if you were in Michigan i see bent rims all the time, but thats also because our roads are bumpier then a teenagers face!

 

I avoid "undercar" shops & chain operations like venerial disease. I'll venture the majority of the work performed by them is unneccessary and another goodly portion incorrectly done.
I see the service records of folks who frequent these places and some of what people are conned into paying for is absurd.
@OP, glad you were smart. Tire buster saw a Jag and figured you for deep pockets.

 

A knowledgeable owner has nothing to fear when going into any shop because the response to any repair suggestion is always "hmmm ... can you show me what you mean"?

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I will try a third shop today just to see what they find wrong.As far as bending rims in Florida......I think 1 trip down I4 through downtown Orlando would probably do it. LOL

 

You'd be surprised. Dallas, Houston, San Antonio have some pretty bad road when you're near thier down town area.

But El Paso, you'd swear they never had proper training in paving a road. Most of their bootleg repairs make the road worse than when the pothole was left alone, and there are more potholes than people. I started to get worried thinking something wrong with the suspension in my car because it wasnt riding smooth...that is until I found an actual decent road on the New Mexico side a realized that yeah, the roads are just horrible there. When I lived in Atlanta, pot holes were a major problem in the downtown but unless ya had to go downtown, the roads were halfway decent. Here, my god, they dont know the meaning of smooth road. To them a "smooth" road is one not made of gravel.

 

i was in San Antonio and i must say those roads were smooth like butter, so i guess in the eyes of a Texan the roads are bad, but in the eyes of a Michigander the roads are great, hopefully that makes sence

 

Franchize places AND dealers are in the cut throat business environment today. A lot of them are barely surviving, and a lot of them are closing down as we speak (at least here in SoCal). The ONLY way they can stay in business is to "upsell". Most of them are doing dishonest upsell, and pushing ANYTHING on the consumer, that they can think off.

I had a recall on my Benz recently. The service advisor told me that they HAVE TO change the brakes because the front ones are at 10% left, and the rears are at 80%. He said that it's a VERY good idea to change the rear as well, because when you change the front, the back ones will be due soon too.

The car has 75K on the clock (2002 S430). We drive the thing about 7K a year, give or take (we have many vehicles). So I asked him what does he think how long do I have on 10% brake pads left on the front. He said a month or two! I proceeded to teach him some simple math. "If the vehicle used up 90% of the brake material in 75K miles,....how many miles will the same vehicle travel before the last 10% is used"? (my elementary school math teacher would be proud of me here!!)

He couldn't answer! So I tried a different angle. "If the vehicle traveled 75K miles in 10 years, how many miles will the vehicle travel in the next 12 months?" He knew the answer! But he still didn't get it why I didn't go for his "generous" offer of full retail minus 10% (because I am a "good" customer!).

So,....no matter where you go for "estimates",....they are not given out to benefit you (the consumer), or your car. They are written in order to increase the gross sales!

Vibration in the wheels? If it's constant, it's linkage, if it varies by the speed, it's the tire. A simple wheel removal and putting it on the balancer for 5 bucks, will tell you what you need to do. And the balljoints, tierod ends, and such, are dime a dozen on Ebay, and cheap. Unbolt everything, bolt the new stuff (monkey see, monkey do!), no need to know anything about toe, castor, camber, call AAA, put the thing on the flatbed, and give it to a shop you trust to realign it (at least that's what I do).

 

If you really wish to dumbfound them ask the question "10% of what?"
I'll bet the farm that less than 10% of those undercar shops could even tell you what the new pad thickness is or what the service limit is. Correlating any measurement to time or miles is a fools errand unless driving conditions are known.
It's also worth noting that brake performance does not decline with wear until the pad is GONE. On many cars the rotors are sacrificial(MBs among them I believe) so replacing brake pads any time before the bitter end is a waste of money. Very thin pads tend to seperate from the backings so a service limit is spec'd by mnfrs. but who cares if you ruin a rotor destined to be replaced anyway?
These upsells and scare tactics are nothing new.