About a year ago, my wife bought me a set of 17" steel wheels and 35" maxxis tires from 4wheelparts. They were shipped to her house, and happy birthday to me! Ever since I put them on, I had a slight shimmy at 40-50mph. It got worse and worse, until one wheeling trip seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back. Now I was getting full on death wobble.

Over the course of the year or so since I've had the tires, I've had them balanced three times, by three difference places, including a road force balance. This is on top of the initial balance that 4WP says they do. I went through the death wobble checklist, paying particular attention to the trackbar. Still, the shimmy soldiered on.

Then a friend of mine allowed me to run his stock wheels and tires for a while, and poof! Problem solved! No wobble, no shimmy, nothing. So, the wheels/tires were the culprit.

I take the wheels and tires back to 4WP and have their tech take a look. They determine that 2 of the 4 wheels came bent from the factory and agreed to replace them. Great! Well... there's more.

All 4 ball joints are shot. The drag link end at the axle side, and the tie rod ends are shot. I ask for a quote, and they say $2500.


My question to you all is: What to do? Suck it up and pay? I feel like the bad wheels caused my components to wear prematurely, and I feel like it's unfair that I'm on the hook for these parts. At the end of the day, I can install the parts myself to save money, but I simply don't want to waste a day fixing what I don't feel I broke. I already wasted $300+ trying to balance these wheels/tires, and I'm at the end of my rope dumping money into this problem.

So, what would you all do?

 

What steel wheel do you have? I had the same prob from 4wheel parts. I went through three pro comp steel wheels bc they couldn't be balanced bc the wheels were "out of round".

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Have them replace the rims.

replace the ball joints on your dime because you let it go for an entire year.

 

Bad Ball joints and tierod ends will cause death wobble. So you said you checked everything and said it was fine. Get it to a shop and they say they are shot. So someone is wrong.

On another note. Factory ball joints are junk. I've heard failures at 10k and up. If your have bigger then 33's ball joints are just the cost of doing business.

Death wobble does shorten the life of components but so doors oversized tires and off roading.

As for the quote 2500 that's nuts. Go buy or rent a ball joint tool. Should be able to change ask those factory parts out for 1000 with quality aftermarket ones.

 

How do they get $2500?! Even for an overpriced shop, the math doesn't add up. You're talking maybe $300 in parts. I could swap those parts out in under two hours. Call it $200 for labor. Where is the other $2000?? And since it is obviously a little bit their fault, I would think they would cut a deal on parts.

Btw, buy the parts and do it yourself. It is pretty basic stuff.

 

My first complaint I was told by 4 wheel parts that my ball joints were bad so I fell for it and paid them $550 to replace them. Still there. Finally they admitted it was the wheels....

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Good set of ball joints 200.00 bucks. Labor to put them in between 5 and 600 bucks, depends on shop rate. A good after market tie rod set up 450 max. Labor with an alignment
150.00. Track bar 225. And 50 bucks in labor. So 1700 max for every thing. If your not mechanical buy the parts and someone one this site would gladly help you out with the labor.


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Wow that's high labor for ball joint. I see ads close to me for synergy ball joints and sleeves installed for less than $400. Synergy tierod $325 w/o forum discounts or just calling a vendor.

 

Wheels are being replaced. I didn't so much "let it go"... I tried searching for the problem at length, even getting the tires balanced three times by three places, the last of which was road force. Short of buying a balancing machine and balancing the tires myself, I don't think I could have been able to spot the wheels being bent from the factory.

I can and probably will install the ball joints, drag link, and tie rod myself. I've put on everything on my Jeep myself, with the exception of the gears. Just curious what everyone else would do in my shoes.

 

how many miles on your JK ? Hard miles?