- Thread Starter
- #21
yes, i do. its OK to rebuild a part but like youre saying, if its tweaked at all or gets tweaked from installing new bushings, the guy wont know until its on the alignment rack. absolutely do ball joints at the same time.might be worth asking what the price difference is between parts and labor. should be less labor to replace complete control arms than to rebuild. if you get an estimate, feel free to PM me and i can look up and verify labor times for you to see if youre gettin a fair deal
I'm curious what you think of the after market stuff. The model has been out for may years so there's a lot of non-OEM. I see some that are under $50.00 for a pair of arms, makes me suspicious. But $100.0+ for one makes me suspicious too. Long time brands, (like Moog?) are probably good. Then "Detroit Axle", sounds like a "Central Pneumatic" from HF.
Appreciate that offer of a PM once I find something.
Gotta love that OWM Honda mark up.
200% was the norm back in my day of wrenching.
The pull tags use to have the real price on them.
And taking the car to a dealer for service, BEND OVER.
I've always jacked the front end up and used a quality (taller than average) set of stands to get the vehicle to a comfortable 2ft working height. My jack stands are made from parts of early rearends. I'm not sure the axles (3-piece) they were built from, but they bolted to the pumpkin (ring/pinion) case.
A couple of years out of high school I went to work in a Honda Motorcycle shop. The parts guy was a kid I'd known in high school. As a recall, the mark up at the time was 300% on parts under $50.00.
I'd been taking this car to Tonkin, where we bought it, for all service until about a year ago. They jacked the the oil chenge from the previous high of $35.00 up to $59.00. I had it done that last time. I'll do things myself now such as brakes, belts, valve adjust. Not brake fluid exchange or tranny service, or hard part exchange.
Tonkin must have lost a bunch of biz because they now offer coupons for $34.95 express lubes again. I'll let them do it for that.