I’m finally going to get the shocks replaced on the Mazda on Monday. I’m planning on getting Rancho RS5000‘s on all four corners. The only problem is that one of the shock mounts on the front-end is broken, and some moron who owned the vehicle before me welded a nut onto the radius arm and bolted the shock to it. It looks pretty crappy, and I doubt that any respectable auto shop would re-use that method of mounting, so I’m expecting to have the radius arm replaced. They list at $47.53 from Ford, which isn’t as bad as I’d have expected, but I have no idea how much labor will end up being. The shocks themselves should be somewhere near $40 apiece, plus $55 for installing all four. All that, plus a front-end alignment, and it’ll probably cost me around $300.
It’s already chewed up two tires on the front. I put the spare on the rear and rotated the existing rear up to the front on our way back from Las Vegas (as I mentioned before), and since then I got a used tire mounted on the other front rim, plus another used tire mounted on the old front rim to be used as a spare. So I’ve got a mismatched tire on the left-front and on the right-rear. Once I get it all fixed and aligned, I’ll probably have to get yet another used tire mounted on the right-front, since that one is already pretty bad after just over a month of use. Hopefully that will last me long enough to save the money to lift it and squeeze my 31″x10.5″ tires under it and replace the hubs.
I just hope that after all this money I’ve already sunk into it and what I’ll be putting into it, that it’ll have been worth it. It seems like I’m always buying shitty vehicles, throwing shitloads of money at them, and still having shitty vehicles in the end. How I long for the day when I can buy something brand-new and not have to worry about paying for repairs for at least three years. Dream on.