Front driver side upper ball joint separated on me while driving on saturday morning. Luckily it happened 20 feet outside of my neighborhood and I was only going around 20 mph.

Right after it happened.
IMG_0123.jpg?t=1312238163

Sitting at the stealership.
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Anyhow, theres no body damage, only suspension components are messed up.

Needs new
-Upper Control arm
-Lower Control arm
-Steering knuckle
-Sway bar
-Left brake line
-Hub assemnly
-Spindle
-Upper and lower ball joints

Dealership says $4,500 for parts and labor, insurance apparently values the truck at $3,600....can you say total loss? Waiting on the official word of it being a total loss.

I will always remember her in her prime.
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I don't know what year your truck is.
But I can not believe that a 2nd Gen. Dakota Q cab is worth only $3,600

Edit. I payed $6,800 for a 2002 two months ago and was happy to get it at that price.

 

2002 4.7 v8 with 140K on it. I don't understand how they said $3,600 either. Especially with all the add-on's..even though I don't think they care about the lift, tires, wheels, and tint etc...

edit: Yeah we paid 7k for this truck completely stock about a year and a half ago after my jeep grand cherokee got totaled from a 4 car pile up (not my fault) Then about 6 months in I lifted it and started all the other mods totaling well over 2,500.

 

If they total it buy it back. Have a good independent shop repair it if you are not able to.
That is a good looking truck and I would keep it.
Good luck with this.

 

I dont nelieve iys worth 3600it and i especially dont believe its 4500a to repair. I dont know about the 2wd...but arent the hub assemblies pretty much a one piece combined as the steering knuckle and spindle? If so i think those are 150 each. Parts alone shouldnt be more than 600 if thats all the damage.

 

If you bought all the parts brand new probably $1000. Or find a junk yard and strip it for all you need and only spend a couple hundred and get it fixed. The hardest part is probably the knuckle... Don't get screwed. You can install a lift yourself you can do all that work your self.

 

Isn't up to me at this point, up to my father. I literally go back to school in 17 days, have absolutely no time to be fixing the truck like that, plus I will need a vehicle at school.

There are 3 options being looked at right now.

A) The truck gets fixed by our insurance company (i have full coverage, so we end up just paying the deductable)
B) Truck gets totaled out and I get a new vehicle.
C) Truck gets totaled out and my mother gets a new vehicle and I get her 2001 Durango SLT.

 

Man that sucks. At least no one was hurt. If it were me I would try to find a way to keep it and fix it. Sounds to me like it is rebuildable. Don't let the insurance take it away from you without putting up a good fight. Sure they might have its estimated value at 3600 but if they total it out, they pay you less than what it's worth to you, and then they will pimp it out to a junk yard for 2000 or 2500 to recoup their loss on it. That sounds like the short end of the stick to me. Like others have said for probably $1000 or less in parts you could fix it back like new yourself, even if you had to tow it home and work on it on your time off from school.

Jimmy

 

holy **** man, did that just rip off with out warning? best of luck

 

Same small fender bender and they say totaled
A lady zipped out of her left only lane and crashed into my front bumper and fender so the insurance CO. Wanted to total it I was shocked TOTALED?????
Blue book says its only worth about 3k at best repairs about the same but the auto shop was trying to pump up the cost they wanted $$$ that’s what made them want to total it Damn auto body shop was saying an old small dent in my rear was part of the crash that alone was adding 1K to the cost of repair.

I got lucky I bitched and bitched and bitched and pointed out that the other cost was included so they remove that cost and I said just Bondo the fender I don’t care and they repaired it not total it.
Can you imagine a small fender bender and it’s considered TOTALED F-that.
My truck runs great and looks great.