MOOG quality and some other info on Ball joints

Been doing some research and there seems to be a variety of opinions on the quality of MOOG joints which leads me to believe that there are other issues at play (installation and type of grease used).

here is an interesting link of manufacturers most of whom are Chinese. There are a few who do the 555 joints and at least one manufactures for MOOG

http://www.alibaba.com/ball-joints-manufacturers.html

Also here is a vid of a guy who doesn't feel MOOG should be called problem solver

http://youtu.be/s8ZVahKc06o

Ill be doing my joints next week and I wont be going with toyota due to cost -- here in MX its about 30% more. Ill be greasing with an over-based calcium sulfonate grease with 5% moly and a higher base oil viscosity than what the regular bearing grease would offer. Basically its a Caterpillar spec grease and based on my experience its the best for the job. Its what is used on heavy mining equipment. a 4 ball of 800kg, excellent water washout and excellent rust inhibiting characteristics. There are several manufacturers who sell this type of grease.

Can anyone offer some data on the miles they have on their joints and which ones they are. Ive decided to go with NAPA premium joints but I am curious.

 

I have MOOG ball joints in my Camburgs UCAs but the original owner installed them and machined dust caps with zerks. I keep them greased often and play plenty hard and they're still going strong.

 

I am curious.

What grease?

How many miles?

What do you have on the lowers?

Play hard? I assume there is mostly Dry and some wet are you doing fast dirt roads that are pothole infested or crawling around on rough terrain?

 

Whatever synthetic grease I get my hands on

20k miles +/-

Lowers are stock

Both fast dirt roads/wash with whoops and crawling with lots of flex

I'm running ext travel Icons with these camburg ball joint UCA's

 

Our old Class 7 Toyota race truck ran 1000's of miles with MOOG ball joints. They work very well and last!!! Whoever says they are not good is an idiot. (there are other good ball joints also out there besides MOOG though) So you do have options

 

Moog quality has gone way down in the last couple years. My Moog lower ball joints were in worse shape after 25k miles compared to the 185k mile OEM ones that were on there before the Moogs

 

Wow, we finished a lot of races with those, even the Baja 500 about 6 years ago with MOOG. Maybe they have gotten shittier since then. I wouldn't be surprised. We run a 1450 truck now with all uniballs so I don't know these days

 

Check out the vid embedded in my original post. The guy does a good job of showing the short-commings of MOOG. Not sure if its just that model but i was pretty convinced not to go with MOOG. Ill take my chances with NAPA.

 

Had an issue with some castle nuts that came with my outer tie rod ends, not being the correct thread, that I bought through Amazon, and found out MOOG won't warranty directly to the end customer... Same thing with a sway bar end link, had a grease fitting that wouldn't thread in, and same thing, MOOG said they wouldn't help, I had to return it and get a new one from the retailer...

Might be switching to DEEZA.

 

I haven't had to mess with ball joints yet but I do think Moog quality control is lacking. I ordered 3 u-joints for my rear driveline from Rock Auto and they were the MOOG premium u-joints. I really only needed to replace the carrier bearing so I only NEEDED to remove one u-joint but figured I'd replace all 3 while the drive shaft was out and on a work bench. We replaced the carrier and went to press in the new u-joint, it was so damn tight the cross wouldn't turn, shit, figured we dropped a needle. Pressed it back out, took everything apart, looked great, no dropped needles, pressed it back in. We repeated this once more and finally tried one of the other u-joints I ordered (same part no, same order). That one fit just fine. In the end, we only replaced that one since there were obviously tolerance issues/variations in the new u-joints. Next time, I'll go with Spicer/OEM.

 

And as I found out today, if you call MOOG, they are going to tell you not to order from RockAuto, as they are a "bad" online retailer, and you get what you pay for when you order the same part number from a low price online retailer; and MOOG won't warranty it...

 

That's a load of crap, Moog parts of the same part number should be made to the same tolerances. Rock Auto warrantied the part anyways, I didn't even have to return it. I told them they didn't fit and they refunded me.

 

i had a bad otre a few weeks ago....
didn't try n send it back tho......
i used mobil syn.....

and i wasn't happy about the smaller dia. thrust washer they supplied either for the inners....

and i would say there customer service sucks at best as well
i have sent numerous emails regarding the part #'s for the grease-able lca bolts and the issue with the rears with no response

 

I agree. Why would they put their name on it if they claim its inferior. Rock Auto isn't selling boot-leg parts. That would be a lawsuit that they could not possibly win. If true that MOOG made that comment that = a BS story and is just one more reason not to go with MOOG. And you can bet that any part Rockauto takes back from a customer goes right back to MOOG who foots the bill.

I am feeling better about my decision not to go with MOOG.

 

check out how the raybestos bj's are made and the quality of design. I would recommend them.

 

If Rockauto is not an authorized reseller, Moog will not honor their normal warranty.
Quite common.
Same thing when you order a watch from Costco, and many New York camera shops.
The warranty is only as good as Rockauto, that's who you will have to deal with if one fails.

As to the OP's alibaba reference to Moog being made in China, just because something is made in China does not mean that it is crap. The Chinese can make very high quality products if they are given the resources to do so.
Products at Walmart are from production lines that are NOT given the resources to do so.
Made in the US or China, you get what you pay for.

 

I agree with the comment that Chinese does not necessarily = low quality.

I have a friend who recently bought some machining equipment and he has nothing but good things to say about the equipment and service. Also lets not forget that it wasn't too long ago that the perception was that Japanese = inferior quality to US made.