I have a 1980 300TD and have had a knocking noise from the right front of the car for a while. A lot of the rubber is worn out and the upper control arms are shot. I have ALL the parts already.


NEW SHOCKS, NEW SPRINGS, UPPER CONTROL ARM LEFT, UPPER CONTROL ARM RIGHT, LEFT TIE ROD, RIGHT TIE ROD, LEFT BALL JOINT, RIGHT BALL JOINT, CENTER DRAG LINK, 2 STABILIZER LINKS LEFT AND RIGHT, 2 LOWER CONTROL ARM BUSHING KITS, 4 REAR TRACK CONTROL ARM MOUNTS, IDLER ARM REPAIR KIT, 4 FRONT TRACK CONTROL ARM MOUNTS



What do you think would be a reasonable price to have this all installed? I was thinking around $500? Or am I being unreasonable. If anyone knows someone in the central jersey area to do it, please let me know.

I guess it would take a competent mechanic one day to fit everything. I would expect the labour rate that you get quoted will be higher than "normal" because the mechanic doesn't have the chance to make some money on the parts.

Don't forget to include the cost of wheel alignment.

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

$500 would be VERY reasonable, bordering on slave labor rates. I paid something like that 10 years ago for the job.

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80 300SD (129k mi) 82 240D stick (193k mi)77 240D auto - stick to be (153k mi) 85 380SL (145k mi) 89 BMW 535i 82 Diesel Rabbit Pickup (374k mi) 91 Jetta IDI Diesel (155k mi) 81 VW Rabbit Convertible Diesel 70 Triumph Spitfire Mk III (63kmi)66 Triumph TR4a IRS (90k mi)67 Ford F-100 (??)

8-10 shop hours. $1000-1500 including alignment.

Its a lot of work.

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'85 300D, 'Lance',250k, ... winter beater (100k on franken-Frybrid 3 Valve Kit)
'82 300D, 'Tex', 228k body / 170k engine ... summer car
'83 300TD Cali Wagon 210k, wife's car

.......yep, if he has the correct tools!

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"Life is tough...it's even tougher if you're stupid." John Wayne


Dave
Pawleys Island, SC

'79 300CD

That's a $1500-2000 job parts included so I'd say someone who knows what he's doing would want $1000-1500 to install your parts.

One problem with having someone install parts purchased separately is the finger pointing when something goes wrong - parts supplier will fault installation, installer will fault the part.

What about the steering damper?

Sixto
87 300D