LOL I am GM and ASE certified in suspension work and I have an associate degree in automotive technologies. I have done 100’s of alignments in my life. I’ll step aside for the guy who did one suspension and had a heck of a time doing that. The flat rate time on what you did is about 6 hours. 70% of the pros out there can beat that time.

OP said he was not doing the work early on in the post. Since the shop has already quoted $400 labor they feel they do all the work in less then 6 hours without using $200 ea control arms. To you they might worth $200 but to a pro they save about 15 minutes per side.

 

So what are you telling me Gorn lol?

 

Unless you plan on doing the work yourself ignore what 1augapfel said. If you plan on doing the work yourself then his information is good do-it-yourself guide.

 

K, thats what I thought cause I'm having a shop do all this work and they told me they have all the tools to complete this mission.

 

Well I'm a degreed mechanical engineer and ASE Master Tech recertified many times over. I've worked in several independent shops. I did my first engine swap in 1977.
The lower balljoints were a nasty, nasty job on my 94 and just because a shop says that they have the tools to do the job does not mean that they can do it right. I've seen the "beat it with a big hammer" method and "my 3/8" impact gun gets close enough to 17 lb-ft" at GM dealerships and that's just not the way I do things. One tech at a GM dealership bragged that he was billing 100 hours a week. That's the guy who used his impact gun on my steering rack. Would I want him working on my car, hell no.
Being an engineer is sometimes a curse. You know why things were probably done a certain way and why shooting from the hip might work but what the negative impacts might be. I try to do things by the book and there's a reason that GM sells only the LCAs with balljoint and bushings already installed.
Good luck to the OP whatever he chooses to do.

 

So your saying you think it’s a better idea for a kid that that admits he has no idea what he is doing, no tools and no place to do it to replace the parts in his front end because of three paragraphs you wrote? Are you saying he should call up the mechanic and tell the mechanic how to repair his car based on your post? What is your suggestion that will help the OP? Classic mechanical engineer move start quoting specs, tolerances and requirements with no clue how the project is going to be made.

Pulling the degreed mechanical engineer card might have work a little back when I was a mechanic but now that I am an aerospace manufacturing engineer I spend about half my day showing degreed mechanical engineers how they screwed up their tolerance stack calculation or correcting their geometric tolerances.

 

TREATEDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!! lol just kidding. Seriously, I just want this to get done as soon as possible. I don't have a degree in mechanical engineering but I do have one for Accounting, I can do your taxes for a fee if you guys want lol. And the shop that's going to do my project is a shop that I believe I can trust, they installed my PaceSetter Headers with magnaflow cataylic converter and it was perfect. I did my own brake job, a friend and eye in my garage and something was wrong with the front calipers and they fixed it with no problem, it was something that none of us thought it would be (something with the pad not being lined up properly with the caliper or something like that so they set it on fire with a torch, it was awesome). Btw, the rear rotors were the hardest to take off cuz they were rusted on pretty damn good, so we hammered it and sprayed nut ruster on it and even torched it as well, I was sord of proud of myself helping a friend install my brakes, quite of a experience. I got the cross/drilled slotted rotors with PowerStop pads, they look SICK. Little by little I'm learning stuff on my own so I won't have to keep going to the shop, so I could actually do it on my own. It's really fun, I just really wish I had all the tools in my garage to make such a operation.