How bad are Duralast Gold Ball Joints?

I'm OEM everything when I'm working on my truck but I just bought one with brand new UBJ and LBJ, guy used Duralast Gold. Anyone know how good/bad these are? OEM seem pretty safe for 75-100,000 miles, think I'm ok to run these for 50k? Hate to change out brand new parts but also I've seen what happens when the ball joints go on these things....

 

Uppers are probably fine
95% will tell you to change out the lowers

 

Most likely those are just rebranded moogs...

I wouldnt have any problem running em 50K.

60K on any non oem.....even the oem's after factory originals, I'd swap by 75K to be safe..

I got napa's with a grease zert.....mine will for sure make it the 60K
....no way I'm gonna spring hundreds $$ just for oem's....thats a lot of money just for a teflon cup....


I'd be more worried about the 4 bolts......its a good ideal to replace those every cycle

I'd be tempted to find those and swap em out....

Unless you beat the hell out them dont think aftermarket is so bad....
on the oem one's, when that teflon cup fails/splits......it all comes apart without warning....
there's no checking for play on that.....

 

They're terrible. I've seen them go anywhere from 5k-20k miles on 255/85r16 tires and mild offroading. It's going to depend on tire size and how the truck is driven, but I don't trust them for anything more than a limp home part after a field failure.

 

I bought the Duralast LBJ for my truck when I was refreshing the front suspension and didn’t realize that the LCA’s didn’t come with new LBJ’s.

After about 4 years and 20k miles, the driver side was ok, but the passenger side was completely shot. It had very loose movement and a ton of play in it. Was probably going to go any day until I changed it.

 

I'd run them for a year or two depending on miles. Speed up the process if you go offroad or generally beat on the truck.

@O'Silver_Taco suggestion to swap the bolts out is also smart if you want some insurance but don't want to spend the money on the full set yet. The bolts seem to fail just as much as the joint itself, and if the P/O used Autozone he probably also reused the bolts or used hardware store replacements (both bad).

Now, it is well known and basically proven that OEM LBJs are safer and will last considerably longer than most if not all aftermarket options (555/Sankei are arguably close I won't get into that argument though).

However, there are hundreds of thousands of 1st generation Tacomas on the road. I'd wager a significant majority of the Tacos on the road are not running OEM. And they don't litter the sides of roads with wheels broken off. Most 1st gen owners treat them as normal daily drivers and do not spend time on TW or other Tacoma forums, and have no idea about this issue. They replace parts when their local mechanic (who also probably doesn't know better) says they're worn out. And they'll use aftermarket parts when they do it.

This is coming from someone who has had an aftermarket LBJ fail, and I would feel perfectly safe to run them for a couple years before getting worried. I didn't know better and ran aftermarket LBJs about 100k before one failed.

You should get OEMs, but they aren't going to fail tomorrow.

 

Not particularly a fan of anything Autozone branded, they have just never been good to me in any form, ie batteries, starters, alternators, none of it.
A lower ball joint failure is no fun, just buy the proven OEM ones and call it a day.

 

Use stock parts please, especially the LBJ's. Or use better parts like TC UCA's and TC uniball conversion for the lowers. Also don't forget to use new bolts, preferably the OEM black ones or ARP.