LBJ Failure

Well, you can't really prove it IS true, based on anecdotal evidence and confirmation bias.

They might be worth the extra cost to you, but perhaps not others.

It all comes down to a judgement call. If the extra cost (double or more than other brands like 555 or MOOG) is worth it to you, by all means go on with your bad self and get them.

I'm mainly rebutting the idea that simply because you can Google "LBJ failures" and find cases of LBJ failures, that means they happen "all the time".

In reality, it's just proof that Google can find you what you're looking for.

I am not saying that the statement "many people have had failures" is false. It's obviously true. I'm just trying to figure out how many people haven't had failures and compare the results. ONly then can you really have an informed decision about whether or not you should really be worrying about it.

 

See below.

If Moogs last half as long till failure (no data on this.. and I'm sure nobody is gonna volunteer to conduct a balljoint failure test soooo...) they will intrinsically cost the same as OEM ones.. won't they? Food for thought!

 

Let me be the exception of that rule - I'm posting here, but my 22 years old Toyota LBJ with 318k miles did not fail yet. And still not about to (I hope I'm right on this).

 

Curiosity got to me so I searched lol.

 

True, but that's assuming the MOOG ones *always* last half as long. That math rarely works out in a practical sense.

If you want to save money long term, get yourself some $35 Autozone brand BJs. Then, just use the lifetime warranty to replace them every year or so, before they wear out (prematurely), for free...

Not that I'm suggesting doing that, but it's another option if cost is your only concern.

 

Of course free is never free. You skip all cost of removing the old LBJ, trip to the store for replacement, installing the new one, check and/fix alignment. And how many times you can torque threads in a spindle before they wore out? How many other things will you break during the LBJ job?

 

Well said! The alignment issue alone is enough to buy the good ones. At $70-80 a pop for an alignment, it's worth it to go with OEM.

 

Ordered some up. less than $200 from camelback shipped. thanks again.

 

Let's see if anyone can find the two significant problems with the factory procedure for checking a LBJ. These issues can significantly mask perceived wear.
Then we can look at the relevance to "checking" an aftermarket 555 joint.

 

I hate LBJ threads. The same forum members justify profusely saving $50-70 bucks on a pair of LBJs by going non-oem, while the rest of the community cannot comprehend why those same forum members buy Toyota for reliability but then swap out critical components with non-oem parts. go figure. To each their own, but these same members will drop hundreds and hundreds on aesthetics and then feel the need to save $50-75 on a part that if it failed, could literally kill you (and unless your time is not valued AT ALL, swapping $35 junk LBJs every 10K miles is far more costly to me than buying OEM at the outset. Makes no sense). To me it is clear they always enter these threads to make sure they feel better about their decision.

 

Can anyone visually see 0.5 MM?? Nope! Basically, if you can see it moving at all, it's waaay out of spec

 

That's about the thickness of a match book cover and unrelated to the two issues I have in mind.

 

Assuming that you even own a dial indicator? Cuz I don't.
Also, what holds the dial up?
Also, when your whole assembly is in the air like that, your springs are pushing the control arm down. Not sure if 66lbs of force would overcome the force of the spring and shock, at least with a lift. When I put my 5100's in, I had to have someone press down the on the control arm to get the assembly in.

 

This is why you need this: or what is shown on the manual plus

 

All unrelated to the two points.

But while I'm here. Look at the drawing again and note that the magnetic base of the indicator is shown stuck to the LCA with the indicator tip on the LBJ housing.
The 66 lbs of force is not intended to move the shock, spring or lca regardless of lift.

 

Na, in the real world you don't need any measuring device. He is mostly correct in that if you can see any movement it's time to start making plans. Not necessarily "way out of spec" but time to start shopping for replacements non the less.

 

What's the riddle?

 

I love this thread - so much BS mixed with really good info, and if you don't know better, you can't tell which is which

 

Actually, it's more about the thought that people are "putting their lives in danger" by buying non-oem parts based on anecdotes and google searches, or their own personal biases. If non-oem parts were such a danger as you'd like us to believe, they would have been recalled, or at least a class action suit against MOOG or ACDelco or whoever. Wait, there was a recall, but it was for *OEM* balljoints. I mean, come on, you have to see the irony there... I know Toyota has since fixed the issue with the design (to a degree), but really, the design it self is the issue (hence the redesign in 2005).

I'm really not sure what you mean by "the rest of the community" anyway, since I'm fairly certain you have no statistic to show how many actually believe that as compared to the total number of Tacoma owners. Maybe you're just talking about the people who sit around and post similar thoughts on the forums... I've said it before, but that's just called confirmation bias.

I'm not saying people should cheap out on parts, or that anyone who buys the expensive crap is being dumb. I just bought a set of Total Chaos UCAs. I could have gotten cheaper ones, but I liked the piece of mind of having the brand with a long history, etc etc... But I don't go around telling people who spent less than $600 on their UCAs they are putting their life in danger for "cheaping out".

If people would stop believing their anecdotes are "data", that'd be great.

 

If you have enough anecdotal evidence, it eventually becomes "data"... though I'm sure the sampling method may not be to your liking