2004 Upper Control Arm Replacement

[MaxOffRd]

Hi, I have a very noticeable clunking when going over bumps on and off road on both sides of the vehicle. I just replaced both sway bar end links since the driver side one sounded like loose change every time I went over a bump. The clunking was there before I replaced the links, but I thought it would correct the noise. Now that I’m looking at things, the upper ball joints on both sides are pretty much shot. The last record I have of the upper control arms being replaced was in 2018 or about 60k miles ago. So I figured it’s time to replace them both.

That being said, I have looked at oem and aftermarket UCAs and have no idea which is going to be best. The boots on the arms now are all cracked and leaking grease. And from what I’ve read already it seems that the oem parts do that more. I want the UCAs to be a little beefed up, I plan to take this off road quite a bit. If anyone has advice or experience with aftermarket vs oem UCAs I’d love to hear your thoughts.

 

[Bazz270]

In my opinion

Use BTF or the OEM only

All of the aftermarket UCA are crap includes Moog ,Delphi and the rest of the chinese junk

 

[gmanpaint]

While I don't have any experience with the 3rd gen parts, I can say that if you use "Pro-Grade" (Premium) line of Aftermarket suspension parts you should be fine for road and light off road use. There is only a handful of factories that make these parts, and many times they are the same part with a different label.

Original parts is hit & miss these days with older vehicles. It's extremely hard to avoid Chinese parts, as even Ford Motorcraft parts can come from China. I'm not talking fake pirate parts either. My new Waterpump was ordered from the Ford dealers parts dept, and it came in a Motorcraft box, with a MotorCraft sticker on it, but it also said made in China on both.

If your planning on doing some harder trails in a 3rd Gen, (which most don't) and do it often, then I would consider the expensive BTF Uppers.

You might have some luck finding some threads in the 3rd Gen sub-forum, to see what others recommend for actual brands.

 

[MaxOffRd]

Thank you both. I will most likely look into the BTF.