Aftermarket ball joints

Thanks for any advice in advance!

I called the yota dealership today and they quoted me $600 for oem upper and lower ball joints. Does anyone have a recommendation for any aftermarket ball joints. I have a family member who has an 01 who replaced his with some aftermarket’s and his lower went out on the passenger side wrecking everything including the fender.

thanks for any advice!!

 

OEM for the win. Dont cheap out on these specific parts

 

McGeorge Toyota on-line for OEM. Not that much higher than aftermarket.

 

Was that an INSTALLED price?

Those usually aren't more than $110 or so each.

Here:
https://parts.camelbacktoyota.com/v...4-gas/front-suspension--suspension-components


A generally acceptable alternative to OEM are the 555 balljoints. The few bucks you save going with some semi generic brand really isn't worth it. I've been served well by the 555's from lowrange offroad (555 is an OEM supplier), but if you were even considering spending $600, just get the oem ones from the above dealer and replace them yourself. It's really not hard at all. Just need a pitman arm puller which are like $15 at harbor freight.

If you care to read it, I have a little diatribe on my build page (link in my sig) about balljoints, where I go into a little more detail, but suffice to say it's best to get the best you can afford, in this order: OEM, 555, Moog, nothing else.

 

oem online price longo toyota

 

For a normal every day driver? Nah.

Believe it or not, uniballs require more maintenance than regular balljoints (granted, it's easy), and the propensity for failure of the stock ones is way overblown. The BJs don't just randomly explode for no reason. Either the owner never did the recall, or they never cared to check them for slop and drove for 200k miles on worn out BJs, or installed them wrong (I see a lot of bolt failures, not the actual balljoint).

Don't get me wrong, I'm highly interested in them. I posted on day one of that thread. But I'm still skeptical. After 1st posting ~2 years ago, the OP went dark for a long time, and only recently posted back up that he's interested in getting production going again. This is most definitely not a solution for the mass market. At least not yet.

 

I have been abusing Moog ball joints for a couple years with 35s, I just grease them every couple months. No play yet.

 

OP of youre gonna upgrade with a lift down the line you can get uca instead of upper ball joints, like Total Chaos uca

 

Those don't prevent lower ball joint failures.

 

That’s a good point. Thing is, I wanna go 881s in the front with 5100s, I was under the impression that I would not technically NEED to get aftermarket UCA’S, I was trying to avoid getting them if possible. Maybe need to do some more thread surfing before making a decision.

 

No this was just for the parts themselves. I originally was planning on doing them when I do the lift but I’m on the fence now. So many options lol!
Thanks for the info and thread. I’ll go check it out.

 

You could buy the parts, tools and a floor jack for less than they quoted. Probably take an hour per side at most.

 

OP where are you located?

 

I’m in northern Indiana.

 

I know a guy that beats prices for OEM Toyota parts.

 

if you were in socal i would help you out changing those ball joints

 

Shoot man I appreciate that. I’m thinking I’m going to do it all at once when I get the lift components. Only way to learn is to do it. It can’t be that hard.

 

if you lift you need uca

 

im still running my stock uca's on a lift but its only about 3 inches. Im still able to get good numbers on my alignment and i dont plan to go any higher

 

Not necessarily, no.

It depends on the truck and alignment numbers you can get