Quote:
Originally Posted by photoleif
i was concerned you might react this way. as i said, i am not saying this is a fake issue. i am not taking you to task at all for wanting to raise awareness. the issue appears to be very real. my thought here is: a concern like this that spans multiple models and years, should at a minimum get its own thread, rather than being one post in an unrelated thread.
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Respect for not feeding the flames. I did not interpret it completely as you taking me to task but had to have some fun with it. I did not initially write it mirroring your wording but when I re-read it compared with your post, I re-wrote it in that way because it made me laugh. I also may have had a few beers first. Thanks for being a good sport and I did not really intend to start anything. Either way, my personal feeling is that those PSA posts pretty much fall on deaf ears and it seemed highly relevant here. If OP did find that the joint appeared to be a "fake" Toyota part, that would definitely warrant a PSA.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ats90mph
The eBay seller was “parts2lan”, and this was back in 2019
If the eBay ball joint was a fake, it’s a damn good one. The powder coating, machining, boot thickness and packaging were all identical to the new joint I picked up from the dealer today (which leads me to believe the eBay part isn’t a counterfeit). The only difference (which gives credence to the low grease theory) is the joint itself. The eBay part could not be moved by hand. The dealer part I picked up today could be easily moved by hand.
While I’m not in the counterfeit business, I don’t see much point in copying low volume, relatively low price parts such as a ball joint. However something like oil filters makes sense. They move a lot of them, and it would seem to be worth setting up all the tooling and printing to produce fake oil filters. You could also slip them into the logistics chain overseas and it not be noticed, just my $0.02...
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I'd tend to agree with your sentiment here but figured I'd throw it out as a potential. It's actually interesting the differences you noted here. Most good ball joints that I've installed are very hard to move by hand. I'd probably be doing the same thing if I were you and just put on the dealership part and call it a day. It's either that, buy an aftermarket solution, or decide a 3rd gen has a risk of critical failure that you're not willing to take. There's so many of them on the road that I do not see it as being that high of a risk. There is another post suggesting that OEM LBJ's have decreased in quality as of late which does cause some concern.
