ralph442000
Junior Member
- Joined
- May 2, 2016
- Posts
- 4
- Reaction score
- 9
- Ram Year
- 2014
- Engine
- Hemi 5.7
Hey all, been a member a while, but very rarely post. I usually lurk and get my answers for stuff from others questions being answered, but I need help with this. First off, I drive a 2014 Ram 1500 Express Regular Cab 4x4 with the Hemi. I bought it new in 14 so everything done to it, good or bad, was done by me. Second, I hate the rake that truck have, with the front leaning forward, so I did my research on this forum and decided that the Bilstein shocks with Mevotech upper control arms would be the best way to lift the front 2 inches to level my truck. So back in 2015, myself and my mechanically inclined friend replaced the stock shocks with the bilsteins, setting them at the 2.1 inch mark, and replaced the upper control arms with the mevotech ones. I had read that the ball joints in the stock UCA's could "pop out" or something more technical than that, and people using the mevotech UCA's were having good luck. We did this and I had the truck aligned within the next couple of days. The tires looked like they has positive camber, but they said the truck needed to settle. After a few weeks, nothing had settled, so I took my truck back. They redid the alignment, said all it good now. It at least looked better. After a couple of months, the wear on the front tires shows the camber was still of, the outside of both front tires was wearing much quicker. This time, I took it to another shop, they corrected the alignment and camber and said I was good now. I bought some new tires and life was good for a while, however the front tires started wearing on the outside again, though this time it did take longer. I took my truck to a 3rd place and they said everything was good and within specs. I told them of the changes I made and they said it all still looked good. Now, to the point of all of this, I took my truck to a 4th shop and they said that the problem is both the upper and lower ball joints are bad and need to be replaced on both the driver and passenger side and that will fix my problem. I don't know enough to doubt them, but they want $1,400 to do this and before doing it, I wanted some opinions. Does this sound right? The ball joints are the problem with the camber being off? If so, is the price right to replace them? And before people tell me to do it myself, I'm in an apartment and don't really have a place to do any work. Thanks if you've read this far. If someone can use the search feature better than me, feel free to point me to another post if this was already discussed.