Price of LBJs
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pluton
Senior Member
Depends on the dealer.
My local dealer(Toyota Santa Monica) takes the price that Camelback or ToyotaPartsZone calls "list", adds about 15%.
Then, they have about a 10% discount off of that for the "trade price".
Yes, buying parts at TSM is a xxtra special ream-job.
Other dealers, in other towns or cities may be somewhat more reasonable.
I didn't even bother asking at TSM when I bought my LBJs.
My local dealer(Toyota Santa Monica) takes the price that Camelback or ToyotaPartsZone calls "list", adds about 15%.
Then, they have about a 10% discount off of that for the "trade price".
Yes, buying parts at TSM is a xxtra special ream-job.
Other dealers, in other towns or cities may be somewhat more reasonable.
I didn't even bother asking at TSM when I bought my LBJs.
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TDIpowered
New member
Rockauto
StreetCreeper
New member
I priced out one for my 97 at two local dealers 50 miles apart. First one said $169 and the second said $142 or something like that.
Ghostrider
Registered User
Yes there is.... The general recomendation on this forum is to make sure you use Toyota parts for the LBJ's. I did mine two weeks ago and also did the outer tie rods and the rubber bellows on the inner tie rods since I was in the neighborhood
Mine were about 85 each from Toyota in Dallas. I was visiting Dallas so I picked them up and saved shipping
Nelsonmd
New member
Read this
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and do a bit of searching. It has been covered to death why there is a very good reason to not buy aftermarket LBJ's. A design flaw by Toyota requires a high quality LBJ (OEM) to eb used and causes aftermarket ones to fail prematurely and catastrophically.
Nelsonmd
New member
Yeah, I think it is pretty reasonable. Some other dealers to check out are Toyota of Dallas and Newnan Toyota in GA. I have used both several times and they both have very similar prices, which are lower than most every other place I have seen, even camelback and toyotapartsforcheap or whatever that place is called. Shipping is usually at least $10 from dealers though, so maybe if camelback offers free shipping it can be cheaper over all there.
LittleCaesar
New member
A fellow member had posted on this forum that he was selling a pair of new OEM LBJs along with new bolts. No idea what he was asking for them but try looking in the classifieds on the forum.
Jaketino
New member
I'll check that out, thanks. I try to stay out if the classifieds section just to keep my money in my wallet. Lol.
dirteater4
New member
I put Moog on mine about 3K miles ago. From advance auto: Moog Ball Joint K90262: Buy the right Ball Joint - Lower at Advance Auto Parts
They are made with a grease fitting option. If you are going to do this, buy the "L" shaped fitting (less than a buck each) and install them before installing the LBJ on your truck.
dirteater4
New member
I put Moog on mine about 3K miles ago. From advance auto: Moog Ball Joint K90262: Buy the right Ball Joint - Lower at Advance Auto Parts
They are made with a grease fitting option. If you are going to do this, buy the "L" shaped fitting (less than a buck each) and install them before installing the LBJ on your truck.
Cow_doc.308
New member
:snacker:
StreetCreeper
New member
I can't speak for the quality of aftermarket parts such as Moog ball joints as I've never used one and lack any practical experience in this area. However, I can say with absolute certainty that the original OEM ball joints lasted a long damn time on my 97 limited. The previous owner never changed them (or much else). They litterally drove the Runner until the passenger wheel fell off at 358 thousand miles.
I took possession of the truck last month and changed over the other (driver side) ball joint. It was just beginning to fail at 359 thousand miles and I wanted nothing to do with it dropping out too.
Can't say if Moog are good or bad, but I can say for certain that OEM LBJs are good...DAMN good.
I took possession of the truck last month and changed over the other (driver side) ball joint. It was just beginning to fail at 359 thousand miles and I wanted nothing to do with it dropping out too.
Can't say if Moog are good or bad, but I can say for certain that OEM LBJs are good...DAMN good.
Nelsonmd
New member
Sorry, I'm a mechanical engineer in the automotive industry, company makes OEM components, and this is 100% backwards. Read some of the exhaustive threads discussing the LBJ's. For the record, my company doesn't make LBJ's, so I don't have any stake in Toyota making more sales, but we do make OEM components, and so we work directly with all the major OEM's around the world (including Toyota), we go through the process of qualifying parts, auditing manufacturing lines, performing failure analysis on EVERY single part returned under warranty, meeting all the international and industry specific quality standards, the whole shebang. Aftermarket products have no required standards and very little liability.
The easiest way to sum it up is that to produce a part for the OEM, a supplier has to meet OEM written specs (which are NDA protected, no matter what aftermarketers say about "meeting OEM spec's", they don't know what they are) and convince the OEM that they can produce a part with a low PPM failure rate over the life of a design generation. It's both a collaborative and adversarial relationship (the OEM has to be convinced the part is worth their millions of dollars contract, and that the part won't cause quality issues over the years, or both the OEM and the supplier will lose money big time). The OEM's even give some of their knowledge/experience to their suppliers so that they can get a better product. Both companies carry legal and financial liability for the quality of their products and have tremendous incentive to make high quality products (and believe me, the auto industry is trending more towards quality than low cost, except for maybe the bottom models for each company; the flagship vehicles are all about quality)
On the other hand, and aftermarket company has to convince just 1 entity that their product is good, themselves. The consumer is hidden from the actual supplier by distributor names like duralast, beck arnley, moog/federal mogul, etc, who if they lose reputation, can just change names, or switch suppliers. Most people looking to buy aftermarket stuff are just looking for the cheapest. Moog has been around for a while, yes, and they have a good reputation in some circles, but most of their sales will come from people looking for the cheapest price, not someone looking for the highest quality. There is relatively little feedback going back to the manufacturer about the quality of the product. Returns won't get sent back to the manufacturer the way they do for OEM's.
I could go on an on, but I have to go to work. There are a myriad of reasons why OEM is higher quality than aftermarket most of the time, particularly for high reliability companies (the toughest being the Japanese and Korean major players, and the Germans, though as much as I hate to compliment the french, PSA is getting tougher too). Don't get bogged down on individual quality problems that the OEM's have from time to time on 1 of the tens of thousands of components on a vehicle. The reason you don't hear about quality issues from the aftermarketers is because there's basically no one to catch them; they have zero oversight from governments, automotive companies or industrial groups, or even really the consumer. Their incentive is cheap cheap cheap.
And don't forget all those threads here showing people's aftermarket LBJ's failing after less than 30k miles, while no OEM one has failed before about 90k. That's still a bit anecdotal for evidence, but if OEM's were failing prior to the warranty period finishing the way the aftermarkets do, there would be a big hullabaloo about it, because the OEM's have oversight and liability.
Sorry, I'm a mechanical engineer in the automotive industry, company makes OEM components, and this is 100% backwards. Read some of the exhaustive threads discussing the LBJ's. For the record, my company doesn't make LBJ's, so I don't have any stake in Toyota making more sales, but we do make OEM components, and so we work directly with all the major OEM's around the world (including Toyota), we go through the process of qualifying parts, auditing manufacturing lines, performing failure analysis on EVERY single part returned under warranty, meeting all the international and industry specific quality standards, the whole shebang. Aftermarket products have no required standards and very little liability.
The easiest way to sum it up is that to produce a part for the OEM, a supplier has to meet OEM written specs (which are NDA protected, no matter what aftermarketers say about "meeting OEM spec's", they don't know what they are) and convince the OEM that they can produce a part with a low PPM failure rate over the life of a design generation. It's both a collaborative and adversarial relationship (the OEM has to be convinced the part is worth their millions of dollars contract, and that the part won't cause quality issues over the years, or both the OEM and the supplier will lose money big time). The OEM's even give some of their knowledge/experience to their suppliers so that they can get a better product. Both companies carry legal and financial liability for the quality of their products and have tremendous incentive to make high quality products (and believe me, the auto industry is trending more towards quality than low cost, except for maybe the bottom models for each company; the flagship vehicles are all about quality)
On the other hand, and aftermarket company has to convince just 1 entity that their product is good, themselves. The consumer is hidden from the actual supplier by distributor names like duralast, beck arnley, moog/federal mogul, etc, who if they lose reputation, can just change names, or switch suppliers. Most people looking to buy aftermarket stuff are just looking for the cheapest. Moog has been around for a while, yes, and they have a good reputation in some circles, but most of their sales will come from people looking for the cheapest price, not someone looking for the highest quality. There is relatively little feedback going back to the manufacturer about the quality of the product. Returns won't get sent back to the manufacturer the way they do for OEM's.
I could go on an on, but I have to go to work. There are a myriad of reasons why OEM is higher quality than aftermarket most of the time, particularly for high reliability companies (the toughest being the Japanese and Korean major players, and the Germans, though as much as I hate to compliment the french, PSA is getting tougher too). Don't get bogged down on individual quality problems that the OEM's have from time to time on 1 of the tens of thousands of components on a vehicle. The reason you don't hear about quality issues from the aftermarketers is because there's basically no one to catch them; they have zero oversight from governments, automotive companies or industrial groups, or even really the consumer. Their incentive is cheap cheap cheap.
And don't forget all those threads here showing people's aftermarket LBJ's failing after less than 30k miles, while no OEM one has failed before about 90k. That's still a bit anecdotal for evidence, but if OEM's were failing prior to the warranty period finishing the way the aftermarkets do, there would be a big hullabaloo about it, because the OEM's have oversight and liability.
First, after reading all the threads on the site I am pretty well set on getting OEM LBJs. But, and I am not trying to start a fight, just a conversation-
How do you square all the above with the Takata mess? I mean, taking for granted that all you wrote is true, I would venture to say that the OEM would be even more particular about a safety item like an air bag, right?
Nelsonmd
New member
A couple ways in general, as I have not researched this specific issue with the airbags:
1. Nobody's perfect. No matter how much engineering rigor you have, there will eventually be a mistake. What you have to look at is the statistical occurrence rate. I guarantee you that OEM's look VERY carefully at this and it affects their sourcing decisions. A company like Takata can't just change their name and reopen. Everyone in the industry knows them, and their reputation is permanently damaged by this (and rightly so it seems!)
To dig deeper into this point, you have to keep in mind that the OEM part for a specific vehicle model is on EVERY single one of those vehicle ever made. If the part needs replacing, then sometime it'll be replaced with OEM, and sometimes with an aftermarket. Then of those aftermarket ones out on, you further split that # between the different aftermarket companies. So what that means is that for pretty much every single component on a vehicle (except for frequent wear items like brake pads, filters, etc.), there are WAY WAY WAY more OEM's out there than aftermarkets, so if you see 5 failures of OEM parts, and 5 failures of an aftermarket part, the failure rate for the aftermarket is WAY higher.
Also, it isn't always that company's fault, it is often a sub-supplier that failed to inform their customers of a problem in time to catch it, or didn't discover the problem until you started getting returns from the field (this is the worst kind, but it does happen). In this case, the company that gets publicly blamed isn't always the one that deserves the blame.
2. The fact that this is big news speaks to my statement that OEM's are actually regulated, financially liable for quality problems, and liable to the consumer via their reputation. I bet there isn't really an "aftermarket" industry for airbags because they are safety critical components. It would be WAY too expensive for an aftermarket company to actually develop independent airbags for different car models and up to safety standards, and if they did, there is probably a law against using non-approved airbags in vehicles (I mean Cali requires approved CAT's to be used, purely environmental concern, not safety). If they really did cover it up, then there will be a huge class action lawsuit.
To your point, safety critical components absolutely are held to a higher standard. My company makes some safety critical parts, and they require alot more testing in qualification, SPC throughout life, and higher requirements for qualifying any changes to the product, all on top of sometimes higher precision and tighter tolerance.
Europe and NA have some laws on this stuff, but all the major companies meet industry standards which though they may not be legally required, if it came to a lawsuit, especially civil, industry standard is held up as the bar for negligence and culpability.
Another out for aftermarkets is that they can just label the part as "for off-road use only" and sell it without any liability or adherence to any rules or laws.
On the other hand, if an aftermarket company has a quality problem, because of the stats described in my first point, there are fewer of them out there, and there's not as much brand identity. For the majority of the aftermarket companies, they are just buying the product from an un-nammed company and branding it under their badge, so if they have a quality problem, they can either change suppliers without notice, or just fold the name and re-open it under a new name.
3. On components like an airbag, they get used so infrequently, that it can be very difficult to generate the statistics you'd normally like to have before calling ti "qualified". Similarly, for expensive components, it can be very difficult to generate high statistical confidence without it costing ridiculous amounts of money. I don't know the actual cost of an airbag when you work in the labor and materials, as well as all the testing and overhead costs, but I don't think they're that cheap. My company's parts are relatively cheap (between $5-20 for labor and materials), and we test hundreds for qualification, and by the time we launch them, we have made (and then scrapped) thousands of them, not to mention the cost of all the machinery we had to make or modify,a nd the cost of the testing itself (not cheap!). It is very difficult to prove out complex designs at a price point that makes it feasible. That is why 6-sigma is so popular, but you have to be very good at 6-sigma to be able to effectively draw conclusions from small sample sizes, and I guarantee you that a jury in a civil or criminal case won't understand if the stats are BS, or sound.
So all that said, that isn't justification for excusing poor performance. Poor performance from any company isn't acceptable. My point is that poor performance is less likely to come from an OEM supplier than from an aftermarket company (that's how you win an OEM contract after all), and there is alot more oversight of an OEM supplier than of an aftermarket company from both the OES's customer and from government and industry organizations.
And no worries on the question, it's a valid question. I'm not loyal to Toyota or anything, I'm an engineer, so I just hate seeing statistics abused by politicians and others that don't understand them (or that do understand, but intentionally warp them), and I hate seeing people just rip on a company that makes a product we want just because they have made some mistakes, or excuse a company that doesn't stack up on quality. There's negligence (which it sounds like may be at play in the Takata case), and then there's pushing the envelope of both technology and cost, both of which are good for the consumer. We have to take the bad with the good.
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