prado ball joints

There were 2 factory recalls on 90series balljoints. The first in about 2001 to fit rubber protection around the lower ball joints. The second was in 2005 and replaced ball joints after many instances of them coming apart.

A search came up with these:
Exploroz 2002
Exploroz 2005

Mark

I have seen two aftermarket ball joints break but they were on Holdens. I have heard of more failing on other net forums.

A couple of years ago I bought some aftermarket lower inner bushes for the front suspension in a HG Holden. Genuine were no longer available. They were of such poor quality they could not be used. The design consists of a hardened steel tube with tiny teeth each end and an outer steel case. Rubber is vulcanised between them. The outer case presses into the control arm and the teeth prevent the inner tube from moving when the nut on the cross shaft is tightened. All suspension movement is by the rubber flexing. Nothing is intended to slip or rotate.

The steel in the tube was so soft the teeth would have worn away within a few weeks allowing metal to metal movement on the shaft. You could not touch an original with a file but these could have been worn away with a nail file.

The big problem with aftermarket parts is you more often than not don't know who made them, what type of materials have been used in them and what kind of research, development and testing they have been subjected to. That can be a real problem with critical parts like ball joints.

This has not always been the case and there were some good locally made parts available years ago. One that comes to mind was Dufor brand ball joints. We noticed at work in the 1970s that the original top ball joint in the XA, B and C Falcon would wear rapidly. A Dufor seem to last indefinitely. We always used genuine for all other cars though if they were available and I still do that today.

If genuine Prado joints are far too expensive, you may find parts shops have several different brands available. I have found this to be the case many times. They will have their big selling cheap ones prominently displayed becaues they are the ones most customers want however their catalogues often list better quality but more expensive alternatives.

Always be aware of the price of genuines because the best from the aftermarket may be so close to them it is not worth going non genuine.

I replaced all four ball joints on the 4runner with an after market set made by Powermax These came with grease nipples in them, and at the same time, I also replaced the Pitman and Idler Arm from Powemax ( both arms were supplied with grease nipples ) and to date after a minor modification to the Idler arm have never had any problems with Powermax parts. They were 50 - 60% cheaper than the Gold and Diamond plated Toyota parts . Unfortunately the company went belly up a few months ago, but a search on the internet found another four ball joints also from Powermax from a company in South Australia which are now going on my sons Surf. Who is going to pick up the reigns to continue supply good quality aftermarket parts remains to be seen

Ah, a slip of the finger on the keyboard - should be reins without a "g". I can well imagine the new car company that is going to replace the ones that have gone belly up. And indeed, God help us