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I had it all planned out. Monday: Strut tops, spring isolators, tie rods, track rod ends and upper control arms. Friday morning: laser align, Friday Afternoon: MOT
Then in snowed and i was late getting to my 'garage'
The guy who did the work for me suggested we should leave the tie rods and track rods for another day or maybe even get them done at a place that does alignment.
I booked in for today using www.alignmycar.co.uk to a place in the NE of Sheffield. The guy on the phone said "sure, no problem, we can do the tie rods and track rods before we laser align it".
I arrived and pulled up to find a spotless garage with the laser aligner in one corner and a wheel balancer in the other. Bells should have rung when there wasn't even a tool box in there.
I hung around in the garage as they cracked on attacking the rod end ball joint. I leaned over and enquired to the guy "erm... what you doing?" he replied "oh, we have to take these bits off before we can put the new ones on". "Well you're not going to get them off like that mate, you're tightening it up!"
Tightening it up, he'd stripped the thread which made it very hard to remove. I stepped in at this point and removed the old one. At this point i should have told them to put one of the new track rods on and gone on my way. But no. They then spent an hour trying to remove the spring clip from the top of the tie rod boot. It was at this point i said "you know what, just put the replacement track rod end on and we'll call it quits.
Consequently i'm £20 of diesel worse off, i failed the MOT and now have to find someone who can do the rods and ends before the MOT runs out.
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Originally Posted by Dane-10
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