Ebay Uniball UCAs (WARNING w/pics)

[SunPilot]

In case anyone else was wondering, like I was, that doesn't happen to have a spare misalignment spacer handy... Here's what a Total Chaos spacer's cross section looks like.

Is that aluminum?

Disregard...after further reading I saw a mention that they were heat treated stainless.

 

[SunPilot]

@ nb Rob
"Your outrage is hilarious.

Let's assume there isn't someone assembling your list of parts in an empty parking lot for no wage....

There needs to be a building -- $$$
with employees - $$$
with benefits, if you want them to stay - $$$
with power - $$$
With tools.... equipment...maintenance...dues...fees...retooling


How many of these 4runner specific UCA's do you think they're making? It's not in the millions and doubtfully in the 10's of thousands.


$600 is pretty reasonable for an american made quality suspension component that is CAD designed, CNC cut, properly welded together, and assembled with quality fittings.

If you think you can do it for half that price and become profitable in 10 years, well I'd like to see that business plan"

---------------------------------

I'm sure they manufacture other items. Thus the cost of the facility, employees, benefits, power, insurance, etc. would be spread across multiple product lines, not only one. Once the CAD drawings are done, they are done. CNC goes quickly. I do believe their prices are excessive. Sadly, if we want the items, we have to pay

 

[SunPilot]

This is my general thought on it. Based on the experience of quite a few reviews I went with these ones. There are still people who think only Warn winches are worth owning too. Of course people said the same thing about japanese products not too long ago too.

<iframe width="854" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0FzTAsVuQuw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I figure if you can do this, they should be good enough for my use.
<iframe width="854" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Gk8ekLq2LFA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

They've fixed the fitment issues. But, obviously the parts I happened to get were dangerous. And I should have recognized the spacers were cast aluminum and not adequate for the clamping force of the bolt. That's on me. Part of the reason I feel comfortable buying these is because I could build my own pretty easily, and this was basically a time savings more than anything else. I probably should have just built my own.

I wonder if the people jumping the FJ have had any problems. Perhaps their UCA's came with different spacers machined out of steel? It would be interesting to know. If they are identical to what you have, it's maybe just one of those things. All in all, I haven't seen too many people complain of failure of these arms, at least from what I've read on the forums.

 

[Jetboy]

So, uh, who says these are made in China anyways? You all are assuming.


OP, it sucks that you experienced a failure like this! It could have been extremely dangerous. I think I'll be inspecting my uniballs right away.

I'd bet my 4runner these are made in china. They're imported by Jennifer Fan who runs a whole group of phony companies by the names of auto.blitz, protune suspension, etc. None of which have a business licenses in California and all list 14010 Live Oak Ave Baldwin Park, CA 91706 USA as an address, but return shipping actually is going to elite-lift. It's a typically fly by night operation with cheap imported parts, no insurance, no business license, pays no taxes, takes no responsibility.

 

[Jetboy]

So, uh, who says these are made in China anyways? You all are assuming.


OP, it sucks that you experienced a failure like this! It could have been extremely dangerous. I think I'll be inspecting my uniballs right away.

I'd bet my 4runner these are made in china. They're imported by Jennifer Fan (who's actual name as best I can tell based on the financial transactions is really Min Hong Yuan) and who runs a whole group of phony companies by the names of auto.blitz, protune suspension, etc. None of which have a business licenses in California and all list 14010 Live Oak Ave Baldwin Park, CA 91706 USA as an address, but return shipping actually is going to elite-lift. It's a typically fly by night operation with cheap imported parts, no insurance, no business license, pays no taxes, takes no responsibility.

 

[amalik]

why would you put anything from ebay related to suspension on a 5th gen? this forum baffles me sometimes.

 

[Jetboy]

why would you put anything from ebay related to suspension on a 5th gen? this forum baffles me sometimes.

I'm getting over ebay pretty quick. Amazon does a far better job of providing at least better information regarding sellers and products. These are a part that should probably cost around $150 per set - and OEM set is only about $100 and it uses rubber bushings that cost a lot more and a far more expensive manufacturing facility. The price wasn't "too good to be true" by any means. But the product was crap obviously. In all honesty outside of the part that failed - they looked reasonably well made. As I understand from other owners the uniballs are non-standard so you can't even replace them with better ones. They're bigger than 1" and smaller than 1.5". So they're a one time use item.

These are also available from the seller outside of ebay here: http://protunesuspension.com/ Looks every bit as legit as most websites if you don't know the quality of th parts.

I also ran Ebay purchased GX460 air springs. They were fine. I removed them since for other reasons, but they worked well for 10,000 miles. I still have them.

I order quite a bit of stuff direct from chinese manufacturers through Alibaba/Aliexpress and cutout the Ebay middle man. Pretty much everything I buy direct takes 60+ days, but the quality so far has always been good from a variety of manufacturers.

 

[05Rrunner]

You get what you pay for. It's really pretty simple

 

[Jetboy]

Should a pair of very simple control arms cost more than a winch? More than a winch bumper? More than a pair of Fox shocks? More than a set of wheels? More than locking differential?

What should you pay for a set of control arms?

 

[rtinniste]

@ nb Rob
"Your outrage is hilarious.

Let's assume there isn't someone assembling your list of parts in an empty parking lot for no wage....

There needs to be a building -- $$$
with employees - $$$
with benefits, if you want them to stay - $$$
with power - $$$
With tools.... equipment...maintenance...dues...fees...retooling


How many of these 4runner specific UCA's do you think they're making? It's not in the millions and doubtfully in the 10's of thousands.


$600 is pretty reasonable for an american made quality suspension component that is CAD designed, CNC cut, properly welded together, and assembled with quality fittings.

If you think you can do it for half that price and become profitable in 10 years, well I'd like to see that business plan"

---------------------------------

I'm sure they manufacture other items. Thus the cost of the facility, employees, benefits, power, insurance, etc. would be spread across multiple product lines, not only one. Once the CAD drawings are done, they are done. CNC goes quickly. I do believe their prices are excessive. Sadly, if we want the items, we have to pay

Couldn't agree with you more....
Its a niche market and they have to recover their output costs. Made in america pay made in america prices end of story. It takes time to make a weld fixture and test fit and cycle the suspension also. It's not a cut and paste type deal. And good welders don't come cheap know how costs.

Chromo ain't cheap either guarantee the eBay arms are made from mild steel. All in all making a billet arm is alot less labor intensive you spend the time creating it in mastercam but after that you have a program file. Load the billet cycle start change operation cycle start. And depending on how big of a mill you have you can load multiple vises and do the same operation on multiple parts.

We do it all the time load up 4 vises and let the machine run. On our 5 axis we just load the billet push start and walk away. And if you use carbide tools and cut aluminum your tool life will last easily a couple hundred parts.

 

[NCHornet]

I just read this entire thread and it's crazy where some have taken this. The OP is posting an issue he had and explained with photos what happened, why and how it can be prevented. I want to thank him for posting this and for his explanation of the issue.

Then a bunch of people climbed up on their milk crate and slammed the OP for not buying USA made control arms and basically say that he doesn't love anyone who rides in his 4Runner and must not care if any of them live or die. He also must not care for anyone else in the world because his 4Runner might spin out of control and kill a bus load of nuns and flatten out the paralyzed child in a wheelchair that the bus flipped over on in the crosswalk, all because he didn't spend $xxxx for made in America control arms. Simply incredible.

I'm as red white and blue as they become. My career field has all but disappeared because everything moved to Mexico or overseas in the 80's and 90's. But just because something is made in the USA doesn't mean it's a quality part. I have seen a lot of American products that should have never been sold. I have no problem paying more for an American made product, but only if the product is the quality that I believe it should have. Every company on the planet has made a product that fails.

I know plenty of folks that have used suspension components that were made overseas and they have beat the crap out of them and they haven't failed. I have also pulled plenty of vehicles off trails and back to a road because a part failed drastically that was Made in America. Where were y'all in the 80's and 90's when manufacturing jobs were flying out of this country leaving millions of Americans without a job? I remember when WalMart advertised that X% of the items they sold were made in America. They sure can't say that now. In todays world we need to evaluate each product for quality and not just from the country it was made in. The quality of products coming out of China has improved greatly from what it was 25 years ago. I wish I was able to fill my home and my garage and shop with nothing but products made here and that everything made here was superior to every product made outside the USA, but that's not the world we live in.

I just received a set of upper and lower control arms made by Freedom Off-Road. I know more people using these that have never had an issue with them. I'm not rock crawling in Moab. I'm just a Country Boy who is more comfortable off-road than I am on the road. The arms I received appear to be very good quality. I will tell you this much, if they do fail on me I probably won't be posting it here, not after reading the replies in this thread. I'm off my China made milk crate now. To the OP, just want to say thank you again for posting this thread. Not sure what you ended up doing but I hope whatever it was that it is working good for you and your needs. Later
NCH

 

[icyhotahs]

I just read this entire thread and it's crazy where some have taken this. The OP is posting an issue he had and explained with photos what happened, why and how it can be prevented. I want to thank him for posting this and for his explanation of the issue.

Then a bunch of people climbed up on their milk crate and slammed the OP for not buying USA made control arms and basically say that he doesn't love anyone who rides in his 4Runner and must not care if any of them live or die. He also must not care for anyone else in the world because his 4Runner might spin out of control and kill a bus load of nuns and flatten out the paralyzed child in a wheelchair that the bus flipped over on in the crosswalk, all because he didn't spend $xxxx for made in America control arms. Simply incredible.

I'm as red white and blue as they become. My career field has all but disappeared because everything moved to Mexico or overseas in the 80's and 90's. But just because something is made in the USA doesn't mean it's a quality part. I have seen a lot of American products that should have never been sold. I have no problem paying more for an American made product, but only if the product is the quality that I believe it should have. Every company on the planet has made a product that fails.

I know plenty of folks that have used suspension components that were made overseas and they have beat the crap out of them and they haven't failed. I have also pulled plenty of vehicles off trails and back to a road because a part failed drastically that was Made in America. Where were y'all in the 80's and 90's when manufacturing jobs were flying out of this country leaving millions of Americans without a job? I remember when WalMart advertised that X% of the items they sold were made in America. They sure can't say that now. In todays world we need to evaluate each product for quality and not just from the country it was made in. The quality of products coming out of China has improved greatly from what it was 25 years ago. I wish I was able to fill my home and my garage and shop with nothing but products made here and that everything made here was superior to every product made outside the USA, but that's not the world we live in.

I just received a set of upper and lower control arms made by Freedom Off-Road. I know more people using these that have never had an issue with them. I'm not rock crawling in Moab. I'm just a Country Boy who is more comfortable off-road than I am on the road. The arms I received appear to be very good quality. I will tell you this much, if they do fail on me I probably won't be posting it here, not after reading the replies in this thread. I'm off my China made milk crate now. To the OP, just want to say thank you again for posting this thread. Not sure what you ended up doing but I hope whatever it was that it is working good for you and your needs. Later
NCH

I couldn't have said this better myself. I keep explaining that although part of the reason jobs left America was economics, unions (which protected workers and got them above just "living wage") and cheaper made products, many America-made products were absolute shit marketed under Nationalism and pro-American sentiment piggy-backed off the Cold War. Too many Americans received crap products, so they looked elsewhere. For almost 30 years, buying American for a lot of people just wasn't economical nor a good purchase.

It's good to see that America is focused once again on making quality products, but you can't knock Taiwan, China, Indonesia for filling the gap that was left when manufacturing left America.

 

[Sundy]

I just received a set of upper and lower control arms made by Freedom Off-Road. I know more people using these that have never had an issue with them. I'm not rock crawling in Moab.

I've been running my Freedom Offroad UCAs for just over 30K now. A combination of lots of highway, wheeling, winter driving, and everything in-between.

For my needs, I'm very happy with them, especially at their price point. Sure, I could get caster numbers well above 4 with SPC's or similar, but my truck is handling fine at 3.6. Ball joints have been good, no slop, although I did start to develop a slight squeak recently. I can likely take some blame as I didn't get grease on as quick as I should have - so the squeak comes and goes - which seems to be the case with most all UCAs.

Mostly a little info for you, as I haven't seen any reviews of people with higher miles like me on them.

 

[shoong]

I couldn't have said this better myself. I keep explaining that although part of the reason jobs left America was economics, unions (which protected workers and got them above just "living wage") and cheaper made products, many America-made products were absolute shit marketed under Nationalism and pro-American sentiment piggy-backed off the Cold War. Too many Americans received crap products, so they looked elsewhere. For almost 30 years, buying American for a lot of people just wasn't economical nor a good purchase.

It's good to see that America is focused once again on making quality products, but you can't knock Taiwan, China, Indonesia for filling the gap that was left when manufacturing left America.

what a wholesome thread:

• learned to do full due diligence on parts and company I purchase from
• got a history lesson
• china and usa both make shit parts from time to time

 

[DoctorPopcorn]

I'm gonna beat this dead horse, too. I know this post is old, but I appreciate the OP sharing his experience, because isn't that why we're all here? I've been on here since 2016 reading about what's worked for folks and what hasn't. I agree and know that you generally get what you pay for and blah blah blah, but I've eyed-up "cost-effective" aftermarket, knock-off parts wondering how they'd hold up. You don't know other peoples' applications, what they're using their rigs for, or what roads they're driving.

It also depends on which parts you're putting on which part of the truck. LBJs for the 3rd gen? I absolutely replaced them with OEM from Camelback. Front sway bar relocates for the 4th gen? Absolutely I bought a $28.99 set off of Amazon from some 10th party company.