SPC Upper Control Arm Excessive Play

My mechanic just informed me that the UCA bushings and ball joint has excessive play and that is what causes my steering to feel really loose. But, I installed new Mevotech (SPC) adjustable UCAs only 8 months ago. It seems a little fishy to me that the bushings and ball joint have gone bad already. I don't do hard-core wheeling, just regular not-slow dirt road driving.

Any of you had failures this soon?

I think I need to get a second opinion. My entire front end is pretty new. New/reman steering rack and inner tie rods done by the shop only 2 months ago, UCA, LCA bushings, lower ball joints all replaced less than 5k miles ago. Only thing I haven't done is wheel bearings, but those are still tight and good. I'm guessing the shop really doesn't want to replace the rack again.

 

Not uncommon for the UCA bushings to wear out on the SPC arms. Unfortunately it is what it is. Seems all UCA's are a bit of a sacrifice in one way or another.

I had a set of SPC UCA's that smoked the bushings in a few thousand miles. Thankfully I went through a shop for them (as well as the install), so I got a new set of arms and a fresh alignment for free.

I have not had the ball joint fail yet, but I give it 2-3 pumps of grease every few thousand miles.

 

I'd get a second opinion. Or get under there yourself with the truck up on jack stands, and hit everything with a pry bar to see what moves.

 

I checked everything with a prybar. I did notice a tiny, and I mean barely more than microscopic, movement in one upper ball joint but not enough to cause extremely loose steering.

I need to find another local shop that understands aftermarket suspension stuff.

 

Yes.

I've been super disappointed in my SPCs. Ball joints have noticeable play in less than a year, replaced them once and have the same things using the grease they recommend, and my new xaxis bushings have noticeable play now too.

Evidentially, SPC is good about warrantying them. I'm going to try to go that route and then replace them with something else.

 

Jack one front tire off the ground. Push and pull on the top of it using all the strength you have. You should be able to feel and maybe hear some play. If you can get it to move, think of what 4000lbs can do.

 

Have you had the alignment checked since its 'wandering'? A good alignment tech should be inspecting your suspension components as part of the alignment.

Those xaxis bushings seem to have quite a few issues. I don't remember if the redesigned arms that have the xaxis bushings will accept the old style specride bushings. Those were the best. They were discontinued but some places still have them. Hate to link LowRange but here they are -
https://lowrangeoffroad.com/specrid...pc-light-racing-upper-control-arms-25466.html

 

Yes, this mechanic checked the alignment when they replaced the rack a couple months ago. I've had my truck back in their shop a few times since then because of the loose steering. First they said it was the LBJ, but even those were less than a year old. I replaced them under warranty and had them check it again. They've now had it for over a week and now they say the UCA is the problem. I'm gonna take it somewhere else cause I honestly think the cheap reman rack they installed is the problem. I had ZERO issues until they replaced it.

If it turns out that the UCA are actually bad, I'll just replace the bushings with those specride bushings.

 

FWIW, LowRange also has the original tubular style SPC UCAs in stock (says 10 left).
https://lowrangeoffroad.com/spc-adj...for-95-04-tacoma-and-96-02-4runner-25460.html