Lower ball joints brand?

The way I read her original post, it may not be the ball joints at all. She might have a loose shock.


I only say this because I have a loose shock, and it definitely makes unsettling noises when going over bumps.

 

I was afraid to go with OEM because of the recall and I was not involved in buying them when it was a work truck but after this happened I wanted to make sure that I am the one buying safe quality part or parts.
If someone else reads this and does not cheap out they can avoid damage or at the every least a tow.

 

Oh yea I have had the truck in my family close to 20 years so I heard all about it.

 

You're okay. I know exactly what you're saying. Some others don't quite get it, and they always know better, right? You're family experience the last couple decades with the ball joints are exactly why I only recommend OEM. People do what they want, but you need to know the best part for longevity, that's the OEM. The OEM one will be youR best chance as it's superior in construction. The crap ones, folks get anywhere from 5k miles to 40k miles. The OEM ones last considerably longer. They're far better made. Nobody can deny that much. If they go off on some strawman argument, just nod politely and say thanks for your opinion and go buy the OEM one.
You may here more BS further here, I hope not. There was a recall years ago. The sumitomo plant that makes the OEM ball joints had an issue in their production of the part. But that was all corrected years ago.
You will be happy with the OEM ball joint

 

Just wanted to add this here... I recently replaced both of my lower ball joints with some Moog parts off Amazon ( i know I know) but I was pleasantly surprised when they arrived with the 555 Stamp.

Passing this along to other Tacoma drivers. At the time of this post, they were $40 a side. Way beefy and made in Japan. $20 per side cheaper than lowrange

$45 MOOG K90259 Front Right Lower Suspension Ball Joint for Toyota Tacoma

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000C560V6/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8

$52 MOOG K90258 Front Left Lower Suspension Ball Joint for Toyota Tacoma

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000C545CC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8

 

Big step in the right direction after replacing my AC Delco chinese parts

 

I would agree lol. I don't see a problem with it as long as they're checked regularly. Which a person should do even with OEM ones

 

Got the same from advance auto. No problems so far.

 

Were they the actual Moog boxed ones ?

 

Yep. Moog boxes on the outside, 555 on the inside.

 

Thats good to hear! I rush delivered mine from Amazon and was quite surprised when I saw the 555 logo. Even more surprised in how different they were from the AC Delcos I took off. Much thicker metal.

 

Yeah I was looking for something localish, since I had places to be and realized that there was a slight possibility that mine were original, and had 200,000 mi on them. I had to drive across town to get them in stock, but they had them.

 

There has been someone that did just that, it's in another LBJ thread on here. Basically he confirmed that the OEM LBJs had the best quality, I'll see if I can find it

 

There's way too many lower ball joint threads lol. Hopefully someone else remembers it too and knows which thread that info was in where the guy showed a few different brands cross sectioned. I remember something about how the OEM ball joint sort of 'floats' in the socket and doesn't make contact with the socket like the other brands do which makes them more likely to fail over time, or something like that

That being said, for a daily driver I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with 555 lower ball joints, as long you check them regularly. For a truck that sees some abuse, I would stick with OEM. Don't want to have to worry more than normal about a failure on the trail or somewhere remote

 

yessir that's the thread

 

From what I understand, 555 makes many of the different BJs. IIRC, I remember people saying they've gotten OEM ones with 555 stamped on them.

Same manufacturer doesn't mean same quality, though. Even if they come off the same factory assembly line, they could be put in different boxes based on the outcome of QA checks. higher tolerances get OEM boxes, etc... They don't throw any of that stuff away, they just sell the crapier stuff under some other name for less money.

 

Maybe, maybe not. It might be more of a pain in the rear to manage multiple products and make sure they get sold to the right people than it would be just to melt them down and try again. I don't know how that particular sausage is made. But its easy enough to just keep an eye on the ones I've got that I'm not going to worry about it.

As long as they last more than 25k or so, they'll be well ahead of my old chevy

 

I'm not aware there was a recall for the 5 lugs. The recall was for the 6 lugs, afaik. So you should be good to go there.

The main problem with the 6 lug balljoints wasn't a Q/A issue (the stated reason for the recall), per say. It really stems from a design flaw, and how the ball/cup is under tension, rather than compression. The Q/A issues Toyota had with the early 6 lug BJs just compounded that and made it worse. So when/if a balljoint were to wear out and fail, it does so catastrophically vs. a "normal" design just getting loose.

In the end there's no getting around the design flaw of the 6 lug balljoints, no matter what brand you get. Only way to get around it is to convert to uniballs and that's like serious coin and fabrication, off-road/long travel stuff.

But again, since you're a 5 lug, you have an entirely different design that doesn't suck.

 

Of course, there's also an entirely different animal too - counterfeit parts. It could very well be the actual japanese sankei 555 parts are just fine, but there's also a factory in China cranking out identical looking but lesser quality ones. I've run into that with electronic parts. It sucks.