Lower ball joints

At what mileage is recommended to replace lower ball joints? Have a ‘04 Tundra with 158,877 miles…

 

Now is a good mileage, it’s best not to dance with danger on the LBJs

 

I leave for along road trip this Friday and just found out this info on YouTube… don’t know if I can find someone to do it for me since I do not have the tools or space to do it myself :/

 

In time that is..

 

Look for videos on how to check for excessive play. And determine your risk factor from those findings

 

Make sure when you do go to replace them that you get Toyota ball joints, not aftermarket. Ask them to install new bolts too.

 

It's very easy to check if you jack the truck up and do the push/pull test, which you should be doing regularly.

You know what's the bigger risk? Letting a shop touch your shit and supply their parts, or you buying counterfeit OEM (or them buying counterfeit OEM). There is no way in hell they'll install OEM unless it's a dealership, and will probably re-use and over-torque the bolts. Maybe you buy your own OEM parts (not on scAmazon or fleaBay) and you buy new bolts and take it in to a shop? But don't rush.

Take care of it when you come back, but jack up each front wheel and test - you know where to grab and push/pull, right? People on this forum have more miles than you on ones they picked up during the recall.

This is how to do the job, if it's interesting. I love this guy's channel. This truck has 250k miles on it, and potentially the original LBJs - but dude mentions at the end "there was no play, this might not have been necessary":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl7DQPb2160​

 

How long have you had it....years, mileage ?

Along with the checking procedure comments, consider registering an account at Toyota Owners site, input your VIN # and check service record, among other things. If your not original owner, you could see if/when the previous owner had the SSC lower ball joint done. My previous owner did mine in 2007 when it came out with 100K miles and at 200K their still in good shape.

Toyota Owners Registration

 

I need some help on this myself. Recently replaced the LBJ with factory units ordered using my vin. I’m fairly certain they were factory units as I for the life of me couldn’t get the outer tie rods off so ordered also factory OTR using the vin, factory parts as well. Well here is where the fun begins. It seems to me as though the ream/taper for the OTR is too large. Is there something I’m missing? When installing the OTRs I’m almost fully smashing the boot to get them mostly tight and the hole for the cotter pin is slightly more than 1/8” above the castle nut. Both sets of parts were ordered from Toyota using my vin to verify fitment yet to me this can’t be right. I even went to Napa and grabbed a set of 555 OTRs to see what the fit would be and they are the same. HELP Tundra gods!!!

 

The part number must be wrong… I was researching LBJ on Toyotas website with my vin. To make sure prices were matching at the dealership I brought my truck to. When checking in the price was more expensive ($220ea) than the supposed right part on the website was ($190). I mentioned that to the guy @ Toyota and when he double checked the part # on the site was wrong? I would call a Toyota parts and see if your part number is correct? Get all new bolts/nuts/pins/etc too if you already haven’t..?

Good Luck

 

@Edub17 pretty late to the convo but if haven’t done so, I’d pay the cost for a carfax report. I’ve done the Toyota owner service history thing and tbh it depends how they input what got done, some of mine literally just say along the lines of regular service. Surprisingly when you look at the carfax it lists the different components that got changed/services such as timing belt, transmission, etc.. of course it’s up to you how much you wanna trust a third party service, but like all the vets are saying, it’s best to just do the lbj and timing belt anyways for ease of mind.

 

you can get OEM ones for under $350. I think I bought mine from Olathe Toyota

 

That's actually pretty high. McGeorge has them for under $200. Prices vary slightly based on year but still well below $300.00


https://toyotaparts.mcgeorgetoyota....n-available-even-if-vin-is-supplied-400521134

 

This post pretty much explains what you're describing: https://www.tundras.com/threads/howto-use-the-toyota-parts-system-to-find-order-parts.113808/

tl;dr version: Basically any time you walk up to a parts counter at a dealership, you should expect them to charge you FULL Toyota MSRP plus any upcharge they deem fit. But there are ways to get parts cheaper from them, directly.

A lot of times with local dealerships in larger cities, if they participate in the Toyota Parts program, you can order the parts through https://autoparts.toyota.com then choose to pickup at the local dealership. Different dealerships give you different discounts for making the order online. I have 5 dealerships within 15 miles, each offers different discount. World Toyota, Marietta Toyota, and Rick Hendrick Toyota are all usually 10-15% off on average depending on the part. The other couple of local dealerships are between 0-5%. Toyota of South Atlanta was my primary dealership to go to, but sadly stopped participating, and as a result, has lost all my parts business. My other nearby dealership in Union City also doesn't participate, and while they'll give me a discount, when I gave them a shot recently, they f*ed me over saying a part would be there next-day "100% positive", only to drive there, find it wasn't there because the delivery truck dropped it at the wrong dealership, and had to waste gas to come back the next day; no compensation for my time/gas, not even a percentage off, totally whack. YMMV.

 

Union City...

 

Yeah, I'll never be back to Toyota of Union City for parts.

The parts manager was cool and all over the phone, but made promises he couldn't keep, and that doesn't fly with me. I literally NEEDED that part the next day. And he knew that. But when the truck arrived at 7:30am or whatever, he had 3+ hours to call me before I headed that way, to give me the bad news and I didn't hear anything. After I'd paid in full, too. It's just ... wrong.