How long do stock uca's last

How long do uca's last? I have 159000km on the ones I currently have. Top of them have rust and rust on the welds. No rips on the rubber or obvious signs of damage. I have a offer for '15 stock ones shipped for 100 that look alot better than mine. Wondering if their worth the trouble. I will be doing 5100's and aal and was thinking of swapping them at that time.

 

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Glad someone asked this
Asking myself the same question as I look into that same suspension upgrade.

 

I think it all depends on what the driving conditions are and how you drive. The ball joints will likely fail before the arm itself fails. I replaced mine with Camburgs at 150,000 miles because with my amount of lift they were pretty strained, but they were still mechanically sound and had the original ball joints.

I think that 100 bucks for stock 15's shipped is a pretty good deal.

 

Price sounds right, no argument there. Question is are they really needed/going to be needed soon? I'll post some pics soon as I'm done work and..... I drive her pretty hardOnly had her for 10000km though.

 

If its just light surface rust I would say no its not necessary that early, maybe 50k or so miles down the road. BUT, depending on how much lift you are going to have up front, it will obviously wear them out more quickly.

1) if its over 2 inches of lift I would save your money and invest in some aftermarket UCA's that allow you to get good alignment.

2) if its 2 inches or under I would keep the ones you currently have and possibly replace them down the road with a set of newer stock UCA's.

 

I would take that deal. The bushings and ball joints are all wearable items, if you're going to be in there (at 100K miles) might as well take care of it then. I've also seen rust cancer form inside the UCA bushing sleeves, so applying some grease to the UCA bolt would be advisable as well.

I could only speculate but I think 125K-150K miles / 10 years, on bushings, and 150-200K miles on the BJ. Just my $0.02

 

My passenger UCA clapped out at 35k or so...the previous owner ran/wheeled without swaybar.

Moog replacement for OEM is pretty good and they priced around $60-80, an inexpensive replacement compared to oem.

 

Here's my question:

Why pay money for newer UCA's that are exactly like the ones you have? If you're going to replace your UCA's and spend money on it why not get something that's actually better?

 

Agreed. If you're going through the hassle of replacing them buy aftermarket. It sounds like you're living in areas where there's snow. Something powder coated would help them last longer

 

Had mine replaced with like-new used ones when the frame was replaced at 278,000. Did the LCA's as well. Was I having any problems? No, but I figured since they had it all apart I might as well. The 278,000 miles was almost all highway miles.
Over 313,000 now.

 

Since they are nothing but a large piece of steel... good for the life of the vehicle.

 

That's a really good point. How the truck is used will also determine how quickly components wear, one of the reasons I have difficulty in estimating these kinds of things as I tend to think in off-road usage scenarios. Thanks for your informative post.

 

This is a picture of my factory UCA that came off at 55K miles.

It was daily driven mostly, with lots off off-road for a normal stock Tacoma at the time.

Bushing has no tears and is intact and looks okay. But as you can see, inside the bushing sleeve, there is rust cancer forming.

If you ever see this on your vehicle, clean and grease inside the bushing sleeve, and UCA bolt.