SPC UCA failures

I have convinced myself to go with Dobinsons UCA if or when the SPC fail. What I still find odd is it seems like most well respected off road shops recommend SPC. My assumption is this is based off of easy alignment adjustments.

 

Dobs Billet. I’m 2.5” lift and amazing alignment!

 

The billet are bling and I know provide adjustability. I am on the fence if tubular meets my needs.

 

Same thing with my local shops re: recommending SPC. Correct. But not only that about the high amount of adjustability, it's recommended because until the notorious manufacturer material issues SPC was rock solid. The control arm is also robust and heavy

 

When I was considering going down the ‘lift’ rabbit hole, the local 4x4 shop was recommending SPC. As I remember, it was for the adjustability. My concern was that adjustability could lead to more opportunities for parts to loosen.

 

Adjustability is mostly for things like castor, and is set with the star plate before torquing the 32mm nut to a whopping 150ft-lbs.
It ain't loosening.

 

Wow! Now that’s torque.

 

Lots of dead SPC UCA's at the Tread Depot.

I just ditched them and went with Apache Off Road UCA's. They come with Moog problem solver ball joints. Also, these arms accept OEM sized ball joints; No more proprietary ball joints.
I was still able to get 4.5 - 5 degrees of caster. Truck drives perfect.

Full disclosures my SPC ball joints failed in 10 months with around 15k miles on them. I greased them 3 times in total. Once on install. Once every oil change after that. And yes I bought some of the grease that SPC calls for specifically. I do wheel every couple of months and drive pretty hard. Maybe that contributed to them failing so early...

When they were first going bad I could barely hear a squeak. Eventually when I would turn right my drivers side ball joint would make a "thunk" noise. I could feel it in the steering wheel as well. It took my a while to track down the noise frankly because the arms were so new I just checked the torque and ruled them out. I should have investigated more. The pop/thunk noise got worse and worse, I eventually jacked the rig up and noticed excessive play in the SPC UBJ.

I threw the SPC arms in the garbage. Buying another set of proprietary ball joints every few months is not something I want to do.
Honestly, buying them was one of my most expensive mistakes... Next to purchasing Rivian stock.




If you have them already, run em. Lots of people have great luck with SPC's. But my personal recommendation is have another set of UCA's ready to buy. Or at least another set of SPC's ball joints in your spare parts box. I won't run them again.

 

Are you in DFW? Not sure if there are Tread Depots elsewhere.

 

Yea

 

Sorry for if this is a dumb question....Do you have to do another alignment when you switch to the sealed ball joint or does it stay in spec by putting it back in the same detent?

 

Technically they say yes, but I marked the star plate and nut when swapping balljoints to sealed, and the truck drives perfect now afterwards (to me). I honestly don't think there's anything the alignment shop would do that I didn't do already to exactly match the same setup I had with grease zerk balljoints.

 

@1SilverRunner is right, SPC ultimately can't be trusted, and that's their own fault.
There's plenty of other options out there for similar price.
4.5-5⁰ castor is better than SPC anyways. I'm maxed at 4⁰, but I could be wrong

Anyone know how I can test my SPC bushings from home, to know if they are failing? What are the symptoms and sounds.
I'm not in a position to scrap SPC, I need to make the control arms work but swap bushings and joints.
Thanks!

 

Sad to see but maybe SPC has went down hill. I used to see so many positive reviews on them, that's why I bought them.
So many accounts of people running them for years without issue.

Now I'm hearing shops say they revised the materials they used and that's what contributed to these issues.
I've also heard other people say it was an isolated quality issue that was quickly resolved. Unless I bought old stock, I don't believe this was the case...

What I know is that SPC did not want to warranty my ball joints when they failed. They aren't a cheap thing to replace. Instead of dealing with the run around from their warranty dept I decided to ditch them. Sucks to eat that cost, but sometimes you've gotta pay to play I suppose.

JBA's are a great option as well, but with the state of the world right now I don't want a lot of proprietary service parts on my rig. I want to be able to go to a parts store or even a Toyota stealership and buy replacement ball joints. This is what lead me to Apache. There are many other options that provide additional caster without adding additional points of failure or proprietary parts.

When the ball joints go, consider upgrading.

 

Very true, and I'm in the same boat not knowing if I bought a good batch or bad batch. My balljoints did last 3 years but they were fucked when I removed them.
I don't think I've heard of Apache. But boy I'm listening now!

But @1SilverRunner do you have any idea how your axis bushings held up, not the balljoints

 

Didn’t even look at them.

 

I hear ya, thanks buddy

I'll research what to look for on YouTube University

 

There shouldn't even be a question of good batch or bad batch after the recall. The fact that any non-trivial number of bad parts were delivered to customers after such a major wake-up call doesn't speak well for their commitment to quality. They are off my list for any future mods.

 

I mean I don't know if I follow, there very much is a good batch or bad batch. It's a matter of if you fall within the defective material product run, or not. You'll never get an answer to what exact dates the bunk balljoints were sold. You need to understand that SPC was a solid trusted name with much more happy customers than them brands ya'll are citing now. SPC was great, until it wasn't. But now apparently that's been resolved, but it's hard to say which product material you're receiving; good, or bad/suspect sku. I know many people who have received free warranty replacement. They are committed to making things right. Hell some people have had zero probs with their SPC, ever.

Now you go

 

Yes, I agree a batch can be bad. They have to know by testing, and after having had to do a major recall, it behooves them to know whether a batch meets specs before it ever reaches a customer's hands. Also, as part of the recall, they should know who they delivered parts to, and which delivered goods have or haven't been replaced by recall. Is there still a manufacturing problem? Is SPC being lax about letting their customers resell recalled parts, either to end users or resellers?

I'm not impressed by formerly solid reputations. In my life as a small-scale manufacturer, I had to disqualify or put training wheels back onto a lot of suppliers that previously had stellar reputations. Some of them worked through their problems. Others did not. The ones that did were diligent about tracking down and following up.

 

Coming from the manufacturing industry I can understand batch failures and recalls. I want SPC to succeed and I want their customers to have a good experience.

I’m cautiously hopeful that I got a bad batch and others will have a better experience.

 

No ya ur right. I agree
Problem is I don't always buy direct from manufacturer, especially in Canada who doesn't manufacture or invent a damn thing lol
So when someone buys SPC's here, it could be a crapshoot. More than anything I would love SPC to use the knowledge they surely have regarding material testing so identify which channels were distributed bunk parts. I just don't know how much they've invested in doing so!
And "is there still a manufacturing problem?"
I actually don't know if we can believe them when they say no, but I think they say no

 

I hope for their sake that any post-recall problems stem from a new failure mode that somehow escaped renewed vigilance. Unscrupulous resellers dealing in recalled parts worries me more, since it's harder for them to control. One strategy is demanding physical return of all unsold parts and submission of sales documentation to show that the balance went to end users (that information is also useful for recall cost estimation). If a reseller can't or won't comply with that, the manufacturer has to weigh the reputational risk of continuing to supply that reseller. That technique can also identify resellers who may have dumped recalled parts to third-party resellers. This is where the authorized dealer model has some benefit, although it usually adds to end-user cost.

Anyway, I wish them luck.

EDIT: I wanted to add a subcategory of reseller misbehavior, which is rather than sending back recalled parts, vendors are often given the option to scrap them. That's a gold mine for crooked vendors who sell recalled part for which the supplier reimbursed them which they claim to have scrapped.

 

Saw this pic from my shop on SPC failure stack growing. I can see mine in the stack. Most people must not use the yellow zirk caps to keep dirt out.

 

When I had my lift put on (6112/5160) the shop recommended the newer SPC. I had asked for JBA based on reviews here, but they didn't have an account with them. As my front was going up 2.7" I wasn't keeping stock UCA's so went with their suggestion. Anecdotal I know but per my local shop they claim they have had zero issues with the newer SPC's. So I'm hoping that's accurate and holds true for me. Either way I have a 3 year parts/labor warranty with the shop, so if they do die I sure hope its within that window.

 

Savage.

 

Oh whaat lol my shop must have took those off when I bought in 2021. I swapped the grease zerk out for 2024 spc sealed joints. So far so good. I haven’t taken apart the axis bushings, but I’d love to know if mine are ok or not. I have zero squeaking.

 

Sealed balljoints or zerk grease fitting?

 

I’m on my 3rd set of SPC ball joints in 3 years.. I replaced them last year on the quick. Took it to my mechanic for some steering issue. He said they had way too much play and needed replacing. I was about to leave a 4 days on a long camping trip. He said luckily I don’t need an inspection as he couldn’t pass it like that. So they quickly got some somewhere and put them on.. ended up leaving from his shop from to travel

So I’m 5 days from leaving to camp around the Boundary Waters area..and yesterday, I took it in for a slight clunk when stopping, and he says, “didn’t we just replace these? Cause they are shot.”

I’ve been greasing them religiously with the special moly grease they told me to use as they told me the last set went bad due to the wrong moly grease…

I contacted SPC yesterday but I don’t have the actual receipt so they “can’t help”. I keep bugging the mechanic, but he can’t remember where he got them, it was so rushed he paid the overnight shipping but can’t remember where from.. this is a small shop guy and I pressured him to get them on as fast as he could.

Im not sure I have time to change out the whole UCAs at this point. I’ll have to do the joints then when they go bad (and I’m totally certain they will) move to another set maybe oem.

id spend my money elsewhere if i had the choice.

 

Sorry about your luck bud.

I'd start putting some money aside for Dobinsons, Apache, or JBA if you're cool with proprietary ball joints.