Dangerous Product: Moog Ball Joints

I purchased a pair of Moog Problem Solver lower ball joints for my '68 Barracuda convertible. The pair that I put in there when I went through the suspension 3 or 4k miles ago were worn out? My alignment guy lifted the front of the car to make enough room for a prybar to lip under the tire and lift it up. The amount of freeplay at the lower balljoint was scary. The bottom of the tire would move over 3/4 of an inch up before the balljoint play would be taken up. Yes, Moog joints.

I ordered another set of Moog joints from Summit, K-781 & K783. I have the 11 &3/4" disc brake swap on my car.

The driver's side went in like normal. When I pulled the passenger side out of the box and prepared to put the rubber boot on it, I felt the entire ball joint itself wiggling loosely in the forged arm. I called Summit and they sent me a replacement and picked up the bad one UPS. I love Summit!

The next day, I received the replacement passenger side lower ball joint, # K-781. The ball joint seemed tight in the arm, so I began to bolt it in. No sooner than I had the K-781 bolted to the spindle and began bolting on the castle nut to attach the assembly to the lower control arm, than the ball joint fell out of the forged arm nearly dropping my spindle/dustshield onto the ground. I was just barley able to catch it in time.

I started doing some research about Moog quality and was disappointed to find this is a rather widely known issue. What a disappointment to find out Moog sold us out!

Needless to say, I am returning both lower ball joints to Summit and making them aware of the dangerous quality control issue with Moog.

I found a company that reportedly sells high quality suspension pasts called XRF Chassis. Has anyone tried their parts?

wow, pretty scaring info considering the rep Moog has always had as being the 'go to' for a quality part!

made in china....

Try and find some old TRW parts.They were USA made and quality and cheaper than Moog.Rocky

XRF=run faster than you can!!

I had a set of their ball joints in our 03 Ram. They were so dam tight that it was scary pulling our 34 fr travel trailer. No other changes to the truck but the joints. Truck pulled beautifully before the joint change. Called xrf. The guy was a total jerk. Stated 03 rams are pos and wouldnt do anything, even though the joints have a lt warranty. 2 yrs, a bunch of white knuckle miles, taking the truck to numerous shops, etc later.... had a local shop look at the jointd. Completety wasted. Called xrf again. SAME jerk answered the phone. Called 03 dodge rams total pos again....So, took the xrf crap out and sent them back to the shop in okc i bought them from. I was shocked when i got a refund from xrf about a month later. The xrf joints were very costly and basically shot from day 1
Replaced them with napa premium joints at half the price. They have lasted 55k so far.

I would not even consider using them.....

See what rock auto has. I bought some very old stock tie rod ends for my 97 dodge ram. They were in car quest boxes but were usa made trw units. Dirt cheap also.

Do some searching on Proforged ball joints. I just bought a set for my Jeep a few months back. I found a thread on a Chevelle forum where a rep answered someones question. He explained why they are made in Taiwan vs products that are "Assembled in USA", it was interesting and made sense to me. My front end guy agreed that he had seen some good stuff come from them as well. Check it out.

Found it

http://www.chevelles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=397013

I just put moog upper and lowers in my car last year, no issues

I was using Raybestos until Federal Mogul bought them. Now I'm resorting to NAPA's NCP line as I understand they are re-boxed Spicer.

I had started hearing some bad things about Moog before doing a front end rebuild on my Diplomat cop car. I emailed Moog and surprisingly got an answer very quickly. It said they manufacture in something like 9 countries, and that if I send part numbers they can tell me country of origin. I did so, and fortunately, my stuff was US made. They've been on for awhile now and have been good, EXCEPT for the damn boots that crack and fall off eventually within a year (usually less).

Does the OP have a pic of the failure?
I'm having a hard time visualizing how a bolted ball joint could fall out?

Not hard to visualize, the ball and stud came out of the housing. Disappointing to hear about Moog, I have them under all may cars and I payed extra to get them.

This is correct, most of the companies that used to sell good, quality, made on at least the North American continent now sell crap made in China, and for the same inflated prices.

The consumer is paying for their motorsports sponsorships ...

Yet ...

So who is good other than ProForged?

I put Moog ball joints on my '01 Dodge 2500 about 4 years ago and they're still OK as far as I know. Put about 40k miles on them. I got them thinking they've got to be better than the cheaper brands and I didn't want any junk underneath that heavy Cummins.

This is a dilema, I have that 3 I need to build in the next 6 months.

fyi the proforged ball joints are made in china too...

https://www.suspension.com/filter/1967/Dodge/Coronet?part_type=Suspension+Ball+Joint

Many many people here for years cried about this China crap again and again. Many naysayers came on and argued many points that their was nothing wrong with the China made crap. Well now that we cannot get most of our parts from any other source and we now are screwed. Corporate greed has done us in finally.

Here are some related shots including the separated ball from the forged arm. The retainer that holds the ball joint into the arm socket appears to have not been crimped together properly. It was just loosely attached.

Ever hear of counterfeit parts? They exist.

If a balljoint comes apart after a short life send it back to MOOG and see what they say.

It's easy to bash MOOG or any other company. It's disappointing to see people with absolutely no knowledge of the actual situation to say "China". Ignorant. Typed on your Chinese keyboard and connected to the Internet by your Chinese computer or Chinese cellphone. They all seem to work okay.

SO LOOK AT THE BOX BEFORE YOU INSTALL THE PART! Is that so hard? I did when I replaced the pickup coil on my 318 distributor. I bought the "T" version of the part number. Made in China, I saw that on the box. After a little more digging I found that the non "T" part number was made in USA. At that point I could have stopped and bought the USA part, but I took the risk. MY CHOICE.

R.

Many manufactures carry more than two seperate lines of product. A higher price point they will sell to jobber garages, and a lower price point they sell retail to complete with retail-based stores. Sometimes you have to ask for "the good ones" AT A PARTS STORE rather than look online for the cheapest place and have them shipped. I only buy Moog from Car QUest, or NAPA's jobber type parts. If you don;t ask for them the parts guys will assume you've been price shopping and give you the cheap crap that competes with the online and retail based parts places.

And break and fall apart like all the other china junk.

Mood problem Solvers # K-781 & K-783 = the "Top Shelf" of the Moog product line. That's why I selected them. I didn't know that Moog's quality had long since fallen to bottom drawer.

The problem is with the company not wanting to insure good quality control, skimping on a fully staffed and competent quality control/ inspection department, maintenance department, supervisors etc... They would rather spend money on advertising and sticking their name on race cars . I'm sure the line level workers don't want to loose there job in china just as much as you don't want to lose your job here.

Damn, I just did mine last month, all seemed OK and they were made in the USA, but I know I will be checking them routinely now after seeing this.

Don`t want anyone to lose their job but they are doing the jobs we use to have.

" Corporate greed has done us in finally."

Uhhh... this is a cheesy cop out I often hear from some people that vote a certain way. Waaaay to easy to play class warfare when you don't know the whole story.

Sometimes, not always, a large corporation moves their operations elsewhere when THIS countries elected officials impose too many regulations, restrictions, demands, conditions, etc. If you want to remain profitable, as a business, you often do what it takes to survive and remain competitive.
Once a major player outsources their manufacturing, it becomes even more difficult for their competitors to continue building stuff here.
I would LOVE to see more American made stuff. The middle class has suffered from the loss of American manufacturing, but blame for that can be found in many places.

Sing it franken...i agree 100 percent...

A cheesy way to try and pull politics into it.

x2

I was having hassles finding ones for my Fury and ended up going with Rare Parts - find the part number and do a search, amazon usually has them at a good price

http://rareparts.com/quality/pasttests.php

the test at the bottom (c-body BJ) looks dodgy just from the pic - its obviously a very second hand BJ that they are testing / comparing to.

I havent had them on the road yet, but apparently they are good according to other ppl running them. From visual inspection, they have beefed them up vs a regular one in a couple of places.

They are made in china, I emailed and asked

Politics aside - every country is facing the waking giant of china's rapidly evolving manufacturing capabilities. Here in OZ we no longer make anything of consequence, to the point that the gov will help long term unemployed pple get training in service type jobs, but not production skills - unless you count computer game programming

Live it up guys and shred that rubber while its still possible - the world as we know it is rapidly heading down the gurgler one way or another

Can't fix the problem if you can;t admit what the cause is.

Sorry to hijack, John.
I am not specifically picking on a particular party, I just get annoyed to see people immediately blame a big corporation for being "greedy" by outsourcing. I am fully aware that there are instances when a company could still be profitable while remaining in the USA, yet they choose to follow the $$$ at the expense of the American middle class. I get it. I purposely phrased my post in a manner to enlighten some that another possible explanation exists.
The best way to see how a business owner is mistreated by the government is to become a business owner.



Regarding MOOG and their products, I hope that this is an isolated incident. TRW and MOOG have been the industry standard for many years. I have rebuilt several Mopar suspensions with MOOG parts with zero failures to date. All manufacturing has some level of defective product. you'd think that there would be some sort of inspection process before the parts are boxed up, right?
In construction, I work with a variety of power tools, we also order large counts of brackets, hangers and hardware. Sometimes we get bolts that somehow came through UNthreaded, some that have damaged threads, brackets where the nail holes are not punched all the way through, etc. Sometimes the nail strips for our nail guns are somehow a few degrees off from spec and they jam the gun. I recall in the 80s there was a rash of counterfeit AC/Delco parts including phony ATF that turned out to be Mineral oil with red dye in it. The products were actually purchased from a GM dealer, so the switcheroo happened somewhere between the factory and the dealer, maybe in a storage warehouse?
The same could happen with anything. Pharmaceuticals, food, tools, car parts, hair gel and hairspray.....

Always a pleasure to hear from you Frankenduster. On a positive note and trying to leave politics aside, I received a set of nice looking XRF ball joints, part # K781/$43.99 & K783/$43.99, from a bunch of unarmed Canadians via a well-armed US Distributor in Plano Texas.

I did find that they are not the ball joint company of choice if you own a Ram pick up though, however to be fair, they have recently come out with a very heavy duty upper ball joint for it. The jury still seems to be out on that part though.

I'll provide a more in-depth review of their quality when I fit them and drive with them for a bit.

Those Canadians are a nice bunch of folks, eh ??

Besides counterfeit parts, there's also folks who will buy the good stuff and the garbage stuff. Then install the good parts, put the junk in the good boxes and return the "good" parts
Happens a lot in the repair industry.
The fix of course is to have the people accepting the returns give everything a good look over before crediting the purchaser. But that means training and extra cost which drives up prices.
Too many people shop on price alone.

A few years back I had like three 2500 4x4 pickups come in that you had to keep correcting the steering wheel as you drove along..... they had all had Moog ball joints installed recently at other shops. Installed the Mopar joints and the trucks drove straight and true. Bet my bottom dollar those Mopar joints are made in china too. Either way, that was my eye opener for Moog as I always had considered them to be a "good" go-to part when doing front end work.

I put new Moog ball joints on my 99 ram 2500 less than a year ago, been feeling something that wasn't right so yesterday at work I pulled it in and changed the oil and decided to check the front end and I'm pissed! Those new Moog ball joints all need replaced. I can move the ball joints by have over a 1/4 inch. Sad. Why can't these people that made this stuff be held accountable for this junk they sell? I have maybe 6k on them and I never take my truck off road. I always avoid pot holes. I also grease the front end every time I change the oil which is at least 4 times each year or 2 thousand miles or less.

There seems to be a known issue with late model Dodge Ram trucks and ball joints. There is a company called Carli Suspension that makes ultra heavy duty replacement ball joints that addresses the problem. Here's their link-

http://www.carlisuspension.com/dodge-ram/ball-joints/index.html

Right. It's not greed, it's about surviving, and so many companies cannot survive here. All we do here now is consume

I replaced one lower ball-joint from napa before going to Carlisle with the Cordoba.Have about 2500 miles on it and she is some loose.Going to see if they can get one thats made in the U.S.

Not a ball joint but like you said, I bought a thermostat from Pep Boys awhile back, Stant, there where two hanging there, one for I think $3.50 the other $8.50 both Stant. You guessed it I bought the cheepy one and first time in use it didn't work. Went back and bought the other. I looked at both up close and could really see the difference in quality, never had any problem with better one. I guess we are all driven by that cheapest price mentality, and the manufacturers oblige us with junk.

FWIW: Both the boxes that these Moog parts came in have "Made in the USA" printed on them. There is no other information on the boxes indicating otherwise.

Probably the box was made in the USA. Getting harder and harder to actually tell where anything is made these days. Probably for the same reason some keep redefining language. When you get found out you hide it rather than fix it.

I was at John's home on Saturday while he was replacing the failed Moog ball joints on his 1968 Barracuda convertible. Took a good close look at them and their failure point. Also examined the boxes they had originally came in,,,appeared genuine. Did say made in USA.

They had almost completely pulled out of their sockets. It appeared as that only some type of moderate gauge like sheet metal material was used as the retainer to keep them securely in place, and this of course was not doing the job.

Had been out for a close to 75 mile ride with him on heavily trafficked 101 a couple of weeks of weeks ago. Shudder to think of what total failure during this ride might have entailed,,,let's just say we were not merely only going with the flow of traffic.

I suggested to him that he package them up and send off to the governmental National Highway Safety Board. NHTSB.

I had some brand new upper ball joints that were not crimped correctly on top. So the whole ball joint was loose. You could see the top plate move. They did not have any ID stampings on them I recognized and did not look like the moog ones I have. They came with some aftermarket UCA's and the balljoints were replaced under warranty no problem.

IMHO, the parts from our cars are not high production items like the newer stuff these aftermarket companies make. So I bet they are made on old tooling and not given the attention their newer stuff gets. I also think Moog and other big companies may subcontract the lower volume stuff out to other manufacturers.

Of course, I have no idea to what he's talking about regarding the traffic flow.

Yes, I knew that already.