I plan to help a buddy do ball joints on his ‘98 F-150 next week. I’m not very familiar with domestic parts suppliers and options.
What’s a good brand these days?
What’s a good brand these days?
Best Ball Joint Brand - Ford F-150
- Thread starter Astro14
- Start date
AutoMechanic
Site Donor 2024
We use Moog on our Ford but we got them when they were still pretty good. I have heard the quality has gone down tremendously. I’d look at TRW or Dynatrac the Dynatrac are probably really out of budget for him though as they are rebuildable when they go bad and very expensive but excellent ball joints I just rebuilt my friends truck with them a few weeks ago. Maybe OEM or something too. Unless you can find NOS Moog. I’m sure others will chime in here as well. Spicer is good too from my experience.
Well darn. Those were a good quality part before. Same way with Timken hub/bearing assemblies those WERE a good part too.
I went with ProForged upper control arms and lower ball joints on my Explorer. They can be ordered off Jegs, Summit, and Amazon. I chose Jegs.
One of the upper control arms is still on backorder...I have a cheap O'Reilly's one for now. The other three are ProForged though. I only have 3,000 or so miles on them, but they looked very high quality and there were no issues with fitment. It handles great.
One of the upper control arms is still on backorder...I have a cheap O'Reilly's one for now. The other three are ProForged though. I only have 3,000 or so miles on them, but they looked very high quality and there were no issues with fitment. It handles great.
Mevotech is mostly Chinese junk. The only reason a shop would use it is because they don't want to wait a day or two to order in the good stuff. If the truck is a keeper, Motorcraft or a brand you can verify is made in N.A. or E.U.
I think that is because NAPA chassis is supplied by Mevotech.
TRW is the OE supplier for those. Its the same joint in a TRW box or Motorcraft packaging so I would go with whichever is cheaper or more available
I used all Moog on mine. Boots rotting is the main issue.
My buddy had mevotech on his 05 Ram and the boot ripped after a year. I just did my avalanche and went w new moogs. Went off-roading twice and so far so good
I have used Moog problem solver, Raybestos and Proforged. Never any issues. I can tell you what brands from experience to NOT use: Mevotech, Autozone Valuecraft, and Detroit Axle. They are all bottom feeder chinese low quality junk. The Detroit Axle brand irks me the most because it plays on it's name to sound USA made and so many people believe that. They are the worse quality I have ever seen. Mevotech looks good and installs ok but any rubber part just disinegrates in a years time and ball joints fail not too far after that. Valuecraft looks like somebody forged them with a pick and axe (tooling marks and rough surfaces) and spray painted them to look good. The rarely install properly and they too will just make the 1 yr warranty.
Moog problem solvers supra mK3 ones on my car, they work great but rust developed within few months. I lathered on rust reformer and spray painted over.
TRW Aftermarket is often times not the same as their OE part. Seen it a lot, both domestic and foreign
Motorcraft or ProFordged. *RA has Motorcraft, but no ProForged. I’m not sure if that MC part is the same as OE?
Typically I’d recommend Dana Spicer, but Im unsure of its availability for your truck.
I also noticed RA has Lemförder too? Ford is in the name after all!
Typically I’d recommend Dana Spicer, but Im unsure of its availability for your truck.
I also noticed RA has Lemförder too? Ford is in the name after all!
At least for a Ranger the good one has "OE" in the part number.
