Called Toyota they say they don't sell them separately, you have to purchase the entire lower control arm.

Is this true?

It's true that Toyota doesn't sell them, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist. Moog makes compatible ball joints and others probably do as well.

Toyota told me the same thing on Monday.

I bought some Moog, grease-able, ball joints on Amazon. I was going to do it myself, but ran into some issues with some other things. I was going to have Toyota do it all since I knew the service adviser, but he said they couldn't.

I have a one-man shop working on it now. I will let you know what he says about it when he is done.

Yes, it is true, Toyota doesn't sell only the ball joints. If your balljoint is bad, how much life do think is left in the bushings? Add in the PITA factor of pressing the things in and out is why most shops will only replace the entire arm.

I agree. Once you add up the cost of the bushings, the ball joint, and the bushing sleeves (mine were fused to cams), you are half way to an aftermarket complete LCA. Add in the PITA part and aftermarket is the way to go. I'm not counting the new cam bolts since I would need to replace them either way.

The only thing is, I wanted to have the OEM ones since I wasn't sure about the aftermarket quality. Refurb ones from Toyota cost 2-3x more than aftermarket.

For whatever it's worth, here's my experience.

I went with Moog control arms. They are the same design as OEM and you can't tell them apart if sitting right next to each other. They are clearly stamped 'Made in Japan' and it wouldn't surprise me to find out they are made in the same factory as the OEM ones. They're certainly not Chinese junk. They cam with a new ball joint and bushings and I replaced my cam bolts with Moog greasable versions. Mine were seized and I had to cut them off.

The Moog control arms have done me well and were not expensive.

Just for kicks, I tried to press the old ball joints out of the old control arms and I couldn't budge them with a 12 ton press. Even under a full load on the press and heat being applied I couldn't break them loose. Some people report being able to get them out with the big C-clamp style ball joint remover but personally I wouldn't count on it. A 20 ton or larger press would probably do it but you'd have to pull the whole arm off to do it and at that point you may just as well replace the arm while you've got it out.

Honestly, I'm not impressed with the OEM arms and bushings enough to pay a premium for OEM replacements. They failed at 121k miles which isn't particularly impressive.

I did the C-Clamp press, and it was one of those mistakes that once gets started the only solution is to keep going....I burned one full weekend (well that does include the hour to replace the axle, original task at hand) broke lots of tools, spent lots of money!

Probably did some damage to the other parts, pulling on the cheater pipe to turn that C-Clamp!


Funny you Call? Toyota...if your here, I think you have the internet ! That is where the parts are these days
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I just spent lots of man hours with a sawzall, press, and torch to rebuild my stock lower control arms with Moog ball joints, bushings, and cam bolts. Do yourself a favor if you value your time at all and just buy the Moog arms.

On a side note, does anybody have a part number and place to get just the metal sleeves and discs that go through the bushings? My original plan was to just replace the bushings but I had to cut through those sleeves and the poly bushings that I bought require the sleeves to be reused. I now have the original arms, poly bushings, and replacement ball joints and only need the sleeves to put everything back together and have them as spares.

The only source that I could find was Toyota OEM and I was told that they come with the new bushings and aren't sold separately. They were pretty damn expensive considering that I only needed the sleeves.

I'd be willing to buy them off of somebody if they replaced their bushings and were able to get them out without cutting through them.

I'm guessing I will be going the MOOG direction, where did you buy yours? I think they were around 240 on Amazon. Also, other than the bolts, is anything else needed (or should anything else be replaced at this time)?
Thanks in advance for anyone with an answer.

You all just made my day. I was feeling so bad about myself.

On Saturday, I set out to replace my CV axles and rebuild my LCA with new bushing, ball joint, and the moog greaseable cam bolts. I hit a snag on the CV axle and then the cam bolts were not cutting as easy as I hoped. Before going any further (after spending 6 hours on it) I stopped before I really got myself in a hole.

Like I said before, I found a good local mechanic that did it all for me today. He charged me only $300 to rebuild my LCAs with my parts I had, put in my CV axles, and replace hub oil seals. He said it took a lot of heat to press out the ball joint.

I originally went to RockAuto but they emailed me the next day saying that their inventor was actually wrong and they didn't have any in stock so I got mine from Parts Geek. I don't remember how much they cost but it was around that amount.

Considering how much labor is involved I think that's a very fair price that they charged you. Congratulations.

It took me a very long time and probably 5 high quality sawzall blades to cut through the bolts. They were tough.

I completely agree. It seems way to good of a deal. I had another quote from a big shop that someone recommended to me. For the exact same work, it was $1,100 with alignment.

Hey guys.....at what mileage are you guys seeing these issues?? What were symptoms??