Yeah Paul!
I just took my XJ in to get aligned and they called me, said an alignment wouldn't help me, and offered to do $1K worth of work to get it to a point where they could align it.
I told them no thank you, make a list, rotate the tires so I can screw all four up, and not just the front two.
They asked if I wanted them balanced too, and I said not, just rotate the darn things... I go to pick it up, and they had balanced them. I got to pay $80 for them to rotate four tires and give me a list that had about $250 in part and $750 in labor.
Not happy with them right now (they will remain nameless and no it wasn't Joe... shame on you for even thinking it and shame on me for trying to use someone close that I don't know, instead of someone I trust like Joe, even though he's on the other side of the world from where I work and isn't open when I'm off anyway...)
So..... I have some new parts coming. :)=) Bushings for the control arms, tie rod ends (actually, I just upgraded the whole cross over steering system), steering stabilizer, blah, blah, blah...
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Bob, I feel your pain, brother. I get to rebuild my front end soon. :)=)
Shouldn't affect anything for this weekend. Just frustrated at the outflow of cash around the vehicles right now.