Summertime means my truck gets a lot more miles put on it for various trips, starting with my annual trip to the Indy 500. A few weeks before that trip my truck started pulling to the left. My route to work is a mine field of potholes, so I figured something got knocked out of whack, and took it to an alignment shop I’ve used a couple times.
$89.99 later, and I swear it was like they’d done nothing to it. They couldn’t get me back in before the Indy 500 trip, so I just had to deal with it. This past Wednesday, they took it back in to get it right this time. They worked on it for about half an hour, test drove it, then put it back on the lift and worked on it for another hour. It passed on the second test drive. They told me they couldn’t give me align sheet, because I had to ask for it ahead of time. Well, whatever, as long as it tracked straight, and it did.
Cut to today, and we’re getting ready to take a little road trip up north to Door County. I felt a weird shimmy twice today at full lock getting in and out of parking spots, so I decided to check it out. Long story short, my buddy and I found a ton of slop in my left upper ball joint. They had trouble aligning it, because they were aligning worn out parts.
The truck is sidelined for the trip tomorrow. My wife doesn’t want to cram into her CX-5, and I can’t afford to rent a Tahoe for $600, so I tossed my buddy a C-note and borrowed his ‘03 Grand Marquis.
I need to find a new shop to do the ball joint and a fresh alignment before my trip to Road America in a couple weeks.
I’m bleeding money lately, so I better find a way to make some more!