Also I have a 99 Dakota that pulled horribly to the right when I initially drove it home upon buying it (bought from private seller) n the glove box was every receipt for anything ever done or bought for that truck from 2002-2019 which was when I got it. As bad as that thing pulled, there were receipts for 2 alignments having been done within a month and 500 miles of each other, by the same shop, who charged for the service both times (back when I was doing alignments if a customer came back with a complaint that soon after the initial job it wound up as a no charge redo) the initial complaint by the old guy that previously owned my truck, was "pulls left".
The 1st alignment was only 1200 miles before I bought it. The 2nd time was a little bit over 700 miles before I bought it.
As soon as I got home (I bought the truck about 100 miles away) I put a floor jack under each side and 3 of the 4 ball joints were so loose they were ready to literally fall out. I replaced them next day with MOOG parts, and it was in for (another) alignment the day after that. Again I had to take it to 2 different places to get it done right.
Also as much as I hear about current day MOOG I will still use them 1st whenever possible given the crap I've seen out of many of the unknowns, especially todays house branded parts that came from who knows who.
I have since found a reputable alignment shop, which is disheartening the trouble I have had with that, being that alignment guy was ME for nearly 20 years.
But getting more to the point we always said "you can't align slop out of parts, they need replaced before a proper alignment can be done". SO that shop that aligned my truck 2x shortly before I bought it could not have even done a front end inspection before they attempted to align it. There is no way in Hell that those ball joints went from "ok" to that bad in 1200 miles since the 1st alignment before I bought it. They had to have been bad already at that time.
I have since put 45k miles on that truck (it doesn't sit much, I drive 70 miles a day just going back n forth for work) and since I replaced the ball joints and got it aligned it's been fine.
Between laziness and incompetence it is very hard to find a good shop. And that is aggravated by the fact that that specialty was exactly what paid my bills for almost 20 years ending in 2005.
The 1st alignment was only 1200 miles before I bought it. The 2nd time was a little bit over 700 miles before I bought it.
As soon as I got home (I bought the truck about 100 miles away) I put a floor jack under each side and 3 of the 4 ball joints were so loose they were ready to literally fall out. I replaced them next day with MOOG parts, and it was in for (another) alignment the day after that. Again I had to take it to 2 different places to get it done right.
Also as much as I hear about current day MOOG I will still use them 1st whenever possible given the crap I've seen out of many of the unknowns, especially todays house branded parts that came from who knows who.
I have since found a reputable alignment shop, which is disheartening the trouble I have had with that, being that alignment guy was ME for nearly 20 years.
But getting more to the point we always said "you can't align slop out of parts, they need replaced before a proper alignment can be done". SO that shop that aligned my truck 2x shortly before I bought it could not have even done a front end inspection before they attempted to align it. There is no way in Hell that those ball joints went from "ok" to that bad in 1200 miles since the 1st alignment before I bought it. They had to have been bad already at that time.
I have since put 45k miles on that truck (it doesn't sit much, I drive 70 miles a day just going back n forth for work) and since I replaced the ball joints and got it aligned it's been fine.
Between laziness and incompetence it is very hard to find a good shop. And that is aggravated by the fact that that specialty was exactly what paid my bills for almost 20 years ending in 2005.
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