So a little history, approx. 2 years ago I upgraded to a prorock 44 housing from Dave at Northridge. Awesome sales, awesome service. I figured while doing the swap I may as well upgrade ball joints to pro steer (again Dave sold me them and installed for free).

Now the total disappointment. Around June on a wheeling trip to Southington off road a blow a U Joint which obviously destroys the ears on the shaft. So I proceed to raise the vehicle to swap a trail spare in and as I raise it I notice the ball joints start to separate????? My first instinct is to look for physical damage from the broken shaft, and to my surprise there is none. I repair the Jeep and drive home.

Monday morning I contact Dynatrac about rebuild kits, to my surprise again the rebuilds are $222.14 after a discount. Wow that is expensive seeing as they were originally $550. So be it, I order them only to wait weeks and receive nothing. I call and find out they don't even have the studs for the rebuild. So I take apart the ball joints to see if I need the stud, only to find one of the caps is cross threaded from the factory making it kind of useless. I manage to put the whole thing back together and get it aligned. The shop says the ball joints are fine. So Dynatrac allows me to cancel my order. It takes them almost two weeks to refund my money. Then a month later my account gets tagged for the 222.14 again and I receive an email saying the parts, I cancelled, are on the way. WTF? I call they tell me they will stop the shipment but I can't get a refund until they receive them for inspection??? Inspect what? They were stopped mid shipment. I Again wait several weeks for a refund.

Now the kicker, I am getting my JK's state inspection only to find out all four ball joints won't pass???? So now what?

I see no benefit to paying $550 for ball joints that are going to last about one maybe two years then have to pay $200+ dollars to rebuild. Do the math the cost of the originals could have bought three sets of Synergy, or alloy USA's.

 

Yep,i almost went that route with ball joints but when the kits to rebuild them cost nearly half the full cost we went with Synergy.Lesson learned

 

Take it to a different place for the inspection. Or is that an option? Regardless, go back to shop that said they were okay and ask them to have a second look.

 

The original shop is the best in town, a buddy owns it and i saw them when he aligned it. The inspection station is where I always go. I was kind of expecting something wrong. My tires have been wearing funny, death wobble started and steering is acting odd.

 

^^^Agree with this. $200 for new Synergy ball joints. Get them, install them, and be done with it. I'm sure Dave at Northridge will do what he can on getting you a deal on the ball joints.

 

You will find the same thing with the currie tie rod ends. Over $65 for the cartridge and more then $200 for just one complete tre.

 

It is frustrating when you buy a premium product only to find out performance is lacking and rebuilding is more expensive then replacing with another product. I own a home and am raising two kids so my budget is tight which makes issues like this even more frustrating.

 

It is frustrating, it almost feel like a lot of the time that we are beta testers on the products that are put out and touted as the must buy component just to be let down over time. Last time I checked JKS was on their 4th generation drag link, rock krawler is on their 3rd generation control arm joints, River raider has redesigned skid plates, currie is on their second or third generation of tie rod. We are introduced to bolt on relocation bracts and coil wedges to fix things other products screw up. Unless you can fab stuff yourself you are unfortunately stuck with the system were have now.

 

Sooo.... why does the state say they won't pass?
But the best shop around says they are good!?!?!?

 

Pontiac31,

We are very sorry for the inconvenience you have experienced. After researching our records and the emails we exchanged, it appears that you are correct and your original order was significantly delayed. This was due to additional parts (new alloy stems) included in your order, which were out of stock. Based on your comments, it appears you also did not receive an email from us advising you of the backorder status. I apologize for that. New stems are not part of the normal rebuild kit, so it is also understandable why you felt the cost of your parts order was too high. Perhaps our tech recommended them as a precaution due to the nature of the shaft failure that occurred.

The person you dealt with is no longer with our company so I cannot address all the issues with regard to the transaction confusion. We did correctly issue credit to your card within 3 days when you cancelled your original order. However, I can see that you did cancel the order, and we incorrectly shipped the back order to you when it was filled. Your credit card was automatically re-billed when that shipment went out. I cannot speak for the time required by the credit card companies to process the transactions, but we did credit your card within 3 days of receiving the parts back from Fedex. Clearly there was confusion on our side, and we apologize.

It seems that your critical problem right now is the failed state inspection. Because of your inconvenience, we will offer you a complete set of new Dynatrac Ball Joints with free shipping. Or, if you prefer to purchase the Synergy joints, we understand completely, and will give you a full refund upon return receipt of the used Dynatrac Ball Joints. We will also pay for, and arrange the return shipping if you choose the return option. We work hard for a living too and understand how valuable every dollar can be. We want you to be happy regardless of the choice you make.

In hindsight it would have been better to ship you the rebuild kits immediately without the stems when you had the original shaft failure. Perhaps that would have prevented the current issue you now have, and the confusion we created.

While we deeply regret the difficulty you have had, we remain confident in the quality and durability of our Dynatrac Ball Joint. If you are willing to return the used product to us we will be eager to understand why yours did not perform satisfactorily. With respect to our pricing, all our products are 100% Made in USA. So it is difficult for us to match the low price of imports from India and China, but we will continue to do the best we can and remain a US manufacturer. We think it is important and worthwhile to do so.

Please contact Jennifer at 714-596-4461 X-206, and she will make sure that we handle your decision promptly.