SPC 25470 - Upper Control Arms

SPC UCA Question

Post #10 talks about SPC changing the ball joints and bushings back in November.

 

I had to replace my SPC UCA due to bad bushing and ball joints going bad in a year Went with OME but SPC gave me warranty replacements

 

Got a bit more insight into the recent issues and why the change in ball joints...

I just had to get warranty replacement on my 1.5 year old UCAs. When talking to SPC, they mentioned that post Covid the quality control on the parts they were getting was a bit all over the place. So some of the bushing and ball joints were not made with as tight of tolerances as they would have liked. That "slop" just got worse and worse with use. The bushing design was apparently fine, and they are still using the same x-axis bushings. They are just making sure they are made better now.

The change in ball joints is apparently from feedback from my fellow canadians. People weren't following the greasing instructions and water/salt was getting into the ball joint from the grease release hole. That hole is normally full of grease so water can't get in, but obviously if you don't grease them you get water in there. Then salt and freezing do their thing and just destroy it. SPC got sick of telling guys they can't get warranty cause they didn't grease them like they should, so they switched to a maintenance free sealed ball joint. And they are making sure the quality control is up to par with these. This switch happened in November 2022.

 

Thanks for the information here. Just received the sealed non-serviceable design and am installing. Was a bit annoyed the bushings failed even with proper greasing with only 20k on them

 

I'm in the same boat...
I had a set of JBA's ready to install and then went to pick up the rear shocks for my kit at Toytec, and the salesperson talked me into the SPC's over the JBA's for reasons I cant remember (was 4 years ago now). Im kicking myself for listening to that guy, the JBA's were $450 at the time, and are now $750 ish. Mine are the newer cast "B" style SPCs, had the ball joints with the zerk fittings to grease them, ive had a clunk in my right front since about 20k miles. Ive now replaced the UCA ball joints, and the new ones that came are those non greasable ones without the zerk, though i might take that cap out and just pop the old zerk into there and make them greasable again. Pretty annoyed with TOYTEC for talking me into the SPC's over the JBA's... have been in constant need of maintenance and crap and still not riding right.

 

I would suggest not doing this. Just based on my discussion with SPC, the new ball joint design has 2 differences. One is the cap where the zerk used to be, the other is on the bottom inside the boot where they plugged the bleed hole that excess grease came out of when you greased them. So they actually are sealed now and you would need to unplug both holes to be able to grease them. The top one is easy enough to get at, the bottom one, not so much.

It kinda sounded like the greasable design was the problem. That bottom bleed hole is where water or whatever would get in. The only thing stopping that is the presence of grease there so it just left too much room for error.

 

Ahh gotcha, Yeah i saw somewhere an SPC rep saying you can just get the retrofit kit for them which is just new boots that have the hole and clips and can take that hex screw out and put a new zerk in there. Either way... before i spend any more money on these stupid things im prob gonna just go to JBA's and cry again since theyre now twice the cost that they were when i was originally doing the lift.

 

Wanted to add a data point for anyone googling out there. Just had the old design UBJ on my ‘09 sport totally separate while driving in a parking lot with under 20k on them. No warning or noises leading up to the failure. Trucks lived a pretty gentle life during those miles and plenty of grease.

I’m hoping the “new design” is more then just the removal of the grease option. That being said, the old p/n is still in circulation and I almost bought one until I real it had been replaced with p/n SPS-35102.

 

I reached out to SPC and they wanted me to start a warranty claim, but denied it due to being purchased in 2019 regardless of mileage on the parts (19,000~ miles).

So I would probably just avoid SPC if possible. This junk will be coming off the first chance I get...

I'm not even really mad about the warranty timeline, the part that concerned me was that this item was a known high failure rate item that required a complete redesign. Would have been nice to get a heads-up that I had a ticking timebomb in my suspension. I had zero clue until it catastrophically failed with no symptoms. Hell, maybe even discount on an early replacement with the new model before it killed my family would have been a solid thing to do. Instead the wheel collapsed in my daughters preschool parking lot...