Weenie. All REAL Volvo owners change ball-joints and u-joints in the snow. Rebuild carbs and replace clutches too!

LOL

All kidding aside (yea I work outside too but enough is enough), if the ball joints are toast you may well suspect the suspension bushes and tie-rods as well. Shocks being down there may be toast too but you can do that yerself well enough so avoid the shop time. You can do upper bushes easily too but have them do the lowers if they are at all suspect as they can be a real pain (and the thing has to be disassembled to do it so...).

If the shop knows their Volvos (I'm still getting over using owner supplied parts... they do not like that out here) then they should be more than willing to give everything the once over and call you with any recommendations about other potential troubles that would be easy to correct while they were in there (saving more shop time).

Heck, they probably have whatever you need on a dusty shelf in back.

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Mike!