To my absolute amazement a decent independent mechanic has opened up a shop in this burg just north of Denver. About all we've had are chains like Meinke. The one independent guy told me he was too tired to do extensive work. The new guy and his dad bought an old gas station, gutted the place, and had it repainted with two new lifts. He's also a Ford nut, owned Mustangs, an F150, a '67 Ranchero, and speaks Ranchero. I've got him fixing up all the oil and antifreeze leaks in my '02 Ranger. Fairly extensive. He even called me to see if it was ok to replace the leaking water pump since that wasn't on my list. Sheez. Meinke would not have asked me nothing - just soaked me with extra charges.
On Tuesday, Pat (2010 Patriot) in for its annual state inspection (2 months late). I got a call an hour later: "Your rear brakes are getting close to needing replacing, with about 20% left". "Yeah, I know, that's about 30,000 miles from now." "And your left front ball joint is bad." "Okay, it better be. Put on a rejection sticker. I'll put it on the lift at work and if it's really bad I'll replace it and bring it back for my sticker." "..................Um,.....okay." Spoiler alert. It's not bad. Now I get to fight them, report them, and get my damn sticker!!!
Excellent! Finding one's so difficult, and finding one that bleeds Ford Blue (like myself) is scarce! Let's hope they're up-to-date on diagnosis procedures. Do they know you work for IIHS?
I think that it is good that you will report them. It is very sad that a few hackers make it bad for all the honest mechanics out there. Just as a side note: 2 years or more ago I gave my 2007 Volvo S60 new ball joints (Moog) just because of mileage and front struts and rear shocks at around 100K. Now that I retired and don't go anywhere much I'm lucky if I put on 8,000 miles in that time. Took it for the yearly safety check and to ck emissions, the manager came out and said his mechanic found the right front ball joint was bad, of course I challenged him on that. Since the car was still the lift I got invited to see it for myself. Sure enough mechanic shook the wheel and I was in disbelief on how bad it was. The shop left the ticket open and let me take the car home and so I could replace the BJ and let me come back the next day to finish up the required inspection with no added expense. The bad: I had purchased the Moog parts on line and lost the receipt and don't remember where I bought it from so I could not get it warranted. (only seller can replace it) The repair shop said Moog parts has 2 lines of products and have gone down hill and he tries not to buy them anymore. https://www.suspension.com/blog/what-is-moogs-warranty/
Saw that problem a couple of times waaaaay back when - turned out it wasn't a part issue - it was a lube issue, specifically, Ford uses molybdenum based steel products in their components and the grease for suspension parts for Fords has a molybdenum base as well - and a lot of the chassis lube that you buy in the parts stores is lithium based (GM popular). And lithium sets up a bi-metallic corrosion issue in Ford spec replacement parts that can rot out through corrosion and exfoliation in half a heartbeat.
That must've been what happened with my Explorer; my sister had the front end completely rebuilt just before 160K (I bought it at 168K), and about 55K later, the outer tie rods, and three of four ball joints were bad. I kept the front end greased every other oil change. Those parts should've lasted at least to 120K, and were Moog.
Yea, been down that road it leads to nowhere. I found a lot of other stuff I ordered for the front end around that time but no BJ's
Ironically, I just changed out the BJ in Pat during lunch. Wanted to do them both, but the bad one put up a fight. And, it actually was bad, sort of. A small amount of play. Infinitesimal. But, enough that I couldn't really fight them on it. Bastards.
Some how, some way I kinda thought someone would take an innocent comment and turn it into something twisted.
