1999 S80 T6: $1224 for steering rack and labor

Post by **matthew1** » 09 Dec 2011, 09:48

This is all 2nd-hand info from my dad (it's his S80) on the phone. It's got perhaps 120k miles on it.

He took it to Firestone to get a rotate and balance. Pulling left after alignment. Not pulling before alignment. They say it's the rack.

Complete rack assembly, RMF $734 (parts and labor)
Remove and replace crossmember $490 (parts and labor)
$1224 Total.

Good? Bad? Keep looking?

Thanks in advance.

Post by **Choguy03** » 09 Dec 2011, 10:02

Run away. That place is a rip off. My dad took his car there for tires and they told him he needed ball joints and tie rods. He said ok, took his car to a guy that has been doing our alignments for years. My dad told the guy what he said and he checked it. The guy comes back and said he could use one new tie rod, but the other was fine. The ball joints were ok and one had even been replaced (other was original). Guy told my dad they flat out lied to him. Screw that place.

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Post by **Choguy03** » 09 Dec 2011, 10:03

By the way, what did they screw up? If it was fine before and now not after and would tell them it was something they did.

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Post by **matthew1** » 09 Dec 2011, 10:34

I purposely didn't mention the word "sabotage" as to not trigger that aspect first, to see if it would come up naturally. And you alluded to it. That makes both of us suspicious.

That's what I told him on the phone (sabotage). He's clueless about cars. Thanks for the reply, Choguy.

Post by **fazool** » 09 Dec 2011, 12:51

Run away!

I went to firestone for a $49 A/C test and brought my $10 coupon. They charged me $49 ($10?!?) to tell me the A/C didn't work and then gave me an estimate of $384 so they could test the A/C system and tell me what's wrong. Then they would give me an estimate to fix it.

So it cost me $50 to find out it was going to cost me $400 bucks to find out how much it was going to cost me to fix it.

W T F !?!?!?!!

Oh, and they said that they had to test my fan system because it was the malfunctioning problem.

Well.......ten minutes on MVS and one bread clip later and I am writing an angry letter from my nice air conditioned car.
If they would have said "your charge level is fine but you need an A/C clutch and it will cost $xxx" I would not have minded. I might have even given them my business. Instead, the free oil change coupon they sent with my refund check and apology letter went straight into the trash. So I, personally, don't trust them.

But, thats not a bad price for a rack replacement. Mine cost $1700 at the dealer.

Post by **bronxnativ** » 09 Dec 2011, 19:21

Matt,
$600-$700 is the average rate here in Denver for a Rack and labor. I shopped about four local indies last year when I needed it replaced on my 95. As far as Firestone is concerned: looks like you figured it out.

Post by **jimmy57** » 09 Dec 2011, 21:05

They should rotate tires and re-check for pull to eliminate tire pull as the cause.
Rack can cause this but is it usually the immediate result of a hard curb hit that tweaks the torsion bar in proportioning valve in upper rack.

OH, the print out for alignment should show small TOE-OUT, not toe-in if they are suing the correct latest specs from Volvo. Toe-in on P2's can cause pull.

Post by **matthew1** » 10 Dec 2011, 10:39

Thanks Jimmy, Al, Fazool. Jimmy, I printed out* your toe in/out sentences to give to my dad so he can go back to them with something from a (ex?) Volvo tech.

I got a quote from my friends at Volvo Specialists down the street from me, and yes, it was less than Firestone's.

* For those of you who need to print out pages, look for this

in the upper-right of topics. It takes you to a "plain" version of the topic, suitable for printing.

J5T · Post by **J5T** » 11 Dec 2011, 07:39

One issue that I have come across (besides never trusting Firestone) is that some alignment places have a hard time finding when the bushing are bad in the lower control arm. Switching the tires may have cause the pull but putting them back should fix it (meaning the pull, not the actual cause of the problem). My feel from reading your post is that your dad needs not a rack. It would have been dong this no matter what tires were on the car. Always get another opinion. Glück!

Post by **matthew1** » 16 Dec 2011, 13:18

So it turns out (no pun intended) the rack is not a problem, not broken, and no work involving it is needed. I'll let you draw your own conclusions from that.

The tire rotation put the tires in a configuration that caused the pull. My dad bought 4 new tires yesterday -- not from Firestone -- and the pulling is gone, problem solved.

Thanks for everybody's input.