Any recommendations on upper and lowe ball joints ?

There's always going to be a debate among the OEM nazis/aftermarket crowd. Some even say that you're endangering people's live by going after market...

OEM is very much the "best", perhaps even the most reliable. The question is if it's worth the added cost given your needs, budget, etc...

For me personally, I'm going to be replacing the lower ball joints about every 3 or 4 years anyway (uppers, I have uniballs now). The Moogs I pulled off a few months ago were showing signs of wear, but still not sloppy after 6 years and maybe 50k miles (I procrastinated replacing them, lol). So, if I'm going to be replacing them fairly regularly *anyway*, might as well spend half the cost for something that is just as reliable in that span of time.

My taco is not my daily driver anymore, so it won't see as many miles as it did in those 6 years, but those miles will be harder off-road miles, so I'll have to just keep an eye on them and reassess as appropriate. Will the 555's last as long as the Moogs - given fewer, but harder miles? Probably - I'm not racing the Baja or anything, lol...

Remember, OEM lower BJs were recalled (on some trucks). The main issue was more or less addressed, but they're still essentially the same design (hence the major resign for 2005+). That's really why I'll be replacing them far sooner than they probably "need" to be.

 

Not necessary just because a good amount of people on here prefer OEM and recommend it for a critical component

 

lighten up, m'kay? I'm not calling people literal Nazis. It's a play on words from a Seinfeld episode.

I'm mostly referring to one particular person who all but threatened me and claimed I was endangering his family for running Moogs.

 

Fair enough. For all future LBJ debate threads, because they will be coming, i shall refer to it as the OEM vs. cheap ass aftermarket crowd

 

I put Moogs on my 'recycling/yard-waste/just snowed a foot last night/ply-wood gettin/lawn-mower hauler' but would go OEM on a DD or Wheeler.

 

I think it's kind of humorous that there are people who freak out about how critical using original manufacturer ball joints on one hand...

And on the other hand, they are perfectly ok with going aftermarket on shocks, struts, coil springs, leaf springs... and changing the rear suspension geometery... and the front suspension AND steering geometry on the EXACT truck they are saying you MUST use original ball joints on.

 

part of this is because of the flawed design. If ball joint failure wasn't so dramatic as it is on these trucks I'd be fine using aftermarket parts, but seeing what can happen when it does fail makes me believe oem is the way to go, toyota wont put their name on a Major safety component if it couldn't handle any abuse/mile.

 

Really? Toyota wouldn't put their name on them if they can't take the abuse? So, I guess Toyota didn't have their name on the millions of ball joints that were recalled?

Ball joints are a maintenance/wear item. If you don't want a catastriphic failure, do proper routine maintenance on your truck... an aftermarket ball joint is not going to fail, like the ones in the original post on this thread, if they are properly maintained and inspected.

And let me just remind everyone... as far as I can gather, the truck that had a catastrophic failure mentioned in this thread was on Toyota ball joints.

 

And I refer to it as the overly expensive OEM vs. just as reliable (with proper maintenance) aftermarket.

And yeah, these threads come around it seems every 6 months or so. And instead of just linking to those threads, we keep talking about it, lol.

 

If it’s that big a deal to you, go buy a 2nd gen with the updated lbj design. Or, keep buying the factory lbjs with the flawed design you speak of, which is still the same basic design as the recalled ones, though they did apparently fix some quality control issues.

I said before the basic (flawed) design is the same regardless if it’s factory oem, or aftermarket. If there were some reasonable uniball designs out there that didn’t require complete redesign of the entire suspension, spindle, etc... I might consider that. I did it for my uppers (total chaos UCAs).

 

rims don't look bad on the 1st gens.

 

Another amusing point that has been made... Toyota wont put their name on a componant that can't take the abuse.

Let's examine this...

1) Toyota DESIGNED... AND put their name on the part (lower ball joint) I think we can all agree was "flawed" from the start. So why are we supposed to agree that the company that made the flawed, original, design is the ONLY company we can trust to make the part?

2) The example of Moog was brought up. Moog (example of an aftermarket supplier) has been manufacturing steering and suspension componants since before Toyota was making cars... Are we to believe they are more likely "to put their name" on junk parts than Toyota?

This arguement may come up frequently... from the comments, I gather it does. It's a stupid arguement. Every attempt to make the case for "Toyota only" ball joints falls flat on it's face. It seems it boils down to people who think paying more means higher quality... which is (mostly) not the case when speaking of (original manufacture) replacement parts.

 

This argument does come up frequently, and is beat to death. Those who prefer moog will buy moog, those who prefer OEM will go that route. You may not agree with the conclusions, or methodology (see here
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/ball-joints.266989/page-3) but it isn't accurate to say that people are pushing OEM LBJs because paying more means higher quality. I am not seeing that as the main argument for OEM. And it is accurate that many who push OEM LBJ are comfortable with aftermarket parts elsewhere. I don't see that a logical fallacy given what this component is used for.

 

Lmao... You don't see the "logical fallacy" of pushing the narrative that the original manufacturer of a part, that is consistantly considered a flawed design, and was a product that was the subject of a major recall, is the only manufacturer that is capable of making a quality replacement of that part?

That sounds completely logical

 

Assuming that there's no room for improving the design or quality control than yes your point makes perfect sense.

 

Did you hit something, or did it just happen out of nowhere? If the latter, I'd replace the drivers side as well. Maybe go with aftermarket UCAs. My truck drives much better after replacing OEM with aftermarket.

 

The flaw is the way the ball joint is mounted, when it fails it has nothing stopping from just falling out it like the second gens or most other ball joint designs. (althought i've seen it happen still, its not possible to prevent it 100%) The parts themselves are alright. Ball joints are maintenance parts, they need to be periodically checked. Going aftermarket or oem doesn't fix the flaw, only way to prevent this from happening is to keep an eye on the things, its personal preference what you want to buy, oem or aftermarket. Most aftermarket is lifetime warrenty, so theres nothing wrong with going aftermarket, just be prepared to have to replace them sooner than the oems.

As for the recall it was for a defect in manufacturing, Some balljoints were nicked when being made, a nick in the balljoint will cause much quicker wear which leads to low mileage failures.

This argument is too open to opinions and we all know how those go. So buy what you buy, some will go aftermarket others will go oem

Best solution? find a way to make this a uniball lower balljoint. thats likely the strongest/ safest option.

As for uppers, i use aftermarket all the time, no issues with them (uniball now so meh)

 

Going on record, I'm pretty damn sure Moog has outsourced some of their parts.

 

Its simple. We buy Toyota for reliability. Once you start replacing parts with aftermarket you are losing that reliability. That's with replacement parts and performance.

Now when it comes to performance parts reliability is lost but that's the game we play to her fun and wheel hard. I've had spc, ome, ect.. parts fail prematurely but I expect that. I don't need replacement non oem parts failing along side my lift parts. At that point toy never catch up.

 

Holy crap.... you are very lucky.

Glad you didn't get hurt