When I had my u-joints and ball joints done at a shop, I can't remember for 100% accurate, but I believe it was in the neighborhood of $400-ish. The u-joints cost about $100-ish of that, so I'm betting if you pay a shop, you're looking at anywhere from $250-$400 for ball joints.

 

I'm going to be bringing it to the shop where I get the ambulance's worked on. So I do trust the guy, but I will have him check out my front end. If it needs an alignment I will just have him do it, if it needs ball joints, I am taking it back to the dealer to have him do it, because I am still under the 60 day warranty.

 

The only bad thing about having the dealership change out your ball joints is that our trucks originally came with ball joints that had no grease fittings, I don't know if the dealership will put in ones with or without them. If you replace them yourself and get them at like AutoZone or Murray's then they will have grease fittings. I think the cost for uppers and lowers runs around 100 or so for parts. Then you can get the tools using AutoZone's loan-a-tool program.

EDIT:
I just checked AutoZone's website here are the prices:
Valucraft: $14.99 Upper $15.99 Lower (each)
Duralast: $32.99 Upper $24.99 Lower (each)

Dealership: (online website that it sent me too) $96.90 Upper $75.57 Lower (This may or may not be for a set)

 

ok i worked in a shop for a few years and i am prety good with alignments. the whole string, tape measure and a tropendo level, if it works for you, good. leave it that way. if this guy knew how to do that, he would have. that just adds to confusion. and it is an easy way to do a ball park area of when you do some rebulids to get the alignment to ge it to a shop. and if it is pulling, it wouldnt be caster, that has to do with the ease of stearing at either higher or lower speeds, it depends on the driver. i dont know why you would have a shop go under the hood if they are doing steering work, or an alignment, that is all underneath

ok one way to narrow this, when does it pull? just driving all the time? or just when you hit the brakes? or just when you take off? it would be the alignment if it does it all the time. it will be the brakes if it does it when the brakes are pressed ( unless it is in the alignment it will be more noticable when you hit the brakes), and if it does it when you take off and thats it, that is a whole mess of problems

 

It does it at any speed. Just a slight pull to the left.

 

I still say alignment. Although, like others said, it could be other suspension components.

Oh, BTW, I was wrong on the ball joints. Found the receipt today. I got all the front ball joints replaced at once, so...

$90 x2 For Lower Ball Joints
$60 x2 For Upper Ball Joints
Labor: $375
Alignment: $60

Total for ball joints: $735

It'd probably be $400-ish if you just had one side, uppers and lowers, replaced.

 

Well I am bringing it to the shop today, so I will let you guys know why it was pulling and what I need to do to fix it. And I am hoping when it doesn't pull anymore if it will help my MPG. xD

 

9 times out of 10 alignment is not the cause of a pull. The angle that would cause the pull is caster and would need to be more than 1 degree or more off to notice a pull. Probably slightly more than 1 degree to get a pull to the left. Rarely will you get a significant change from left to right with this angle. Unless of course it has been in an accident.

The most common cause is tires. As I have already said and I think someone else commented as well you should cross rotate the fronts before spending money on an alignment.

 

After looking at my tires the past few days they do look a bit choppy, they are a really aggressive tire and were on the truck when I bought them. Like you guys were saying, they were the tires. So I am gonna put them on the back, do a nice little burn out show and that should level them out. lol But also in the front end I will have to replace (eventually) the passenger side axel joint and the sway arm joints. But the pulling was because of the front tires being a bit choppy. So you guys were right, tires. And I was just bringing down to be looked at, jsut to make sure the squeaking noise wasn't any thing bad. Which it was prolly the sway arm joints. The shop I took it too is jsut a local guy (I live in a really small town, so most of the time people don't screw you if you know them) and he checked out my front end and didn't charge me anything. So, gonna put my back tires on the front, and front tires on the back. Speaking of which anyone ever do the axel joints, how hard of a job is that?

 

2WD or 4WD? Are you talking about the front u-joints?