Repeated UBJ failures?

Hello all,

03 DCSB 4x4.

Having an interesting issue I’m hoping to get some advice on. I’ve had two sets of UBJs fail in the past 11k miles.

The first set was MEVOTECH MK90255, which lasted me ~6k miles. Catastrophic failure on the highway, actually! Just snapped in half on the driver’s side after a bump. Luckily it didn’t do much but make my steering feel extremely wrong. So I was able to pull into a truck stop and get it sorted. Tow truck, local repair shop, etc.

They put on the Oreilly’s house brand (don’t remember exact model #). I requested the Oreilly’s UBJs. I had wanted OEM, but none of the dealerships near my then-broken truck had any in stock. This whole thing happened while I was out of town.

Now, here we are just shy of 5,000 mi and the boots are torn on the Oreilly’s set.

I’m at a bit of a loss. Is there some behavior on my end or some issue with another component that could cause these repeated failures? Or did I just buy crap parts, twice? Is there something I’m missing here?

Rear leaf springs are entirely worn out. They sit flat loaded or unloaded. Replacing those this weekend.
No lift. Bilstein 4600s all around. Reused old springs. Truck had its frame replacement finished in December. Frame replaced due to rust.

That’s about all the info I have at the moment. Please let me know if you need any pictures or have any advice here.

Thanks!

 

For the leaf springs, they come flat from the factory.

For the ball joints, go OEM. I got a set of Mevotech ttx ball joints on my lowers then less than 3 months later when I was changing my oil I found them both with the boots separated. When I worked at both a chevy dealer and aftermarket shop specializing in lifts, aftermarket ball joints were a joke. I thought it was from customer use or something else but after my own experience now with them and my old ranger ( I sold it to someone I know) I can confidently say without knowing you that it's probably not your fault.

Spend the money on OEM and you'll probably never have to change them again. My 92 Camry still has the factory ball joints on it.

 

Thank you for your reply Joba,

That's largely what I was trying to figure out. It just seems a bit insane to me that these aftermarkets would go bad SO soon.

We'll get some OEMs in there as soon as the money comes around. Thank you for your help and your story!