Apache Offroad UCAs?

Anyone know anything about this rather obscure outfit? I am near to the ordering stage of my suspension for my rig and am looking at options. Since I am not a millionaire, I am also a little budget-conscious lol. From what I can see, these appear to be a decent option. Bout a hundred bucks or so cheaper than the Dobinson's tubular I was looking at. Even Crickeymike (Exit Offroad) has them on his site. I can't seem to find much about them as far as where they are made/etc but on their face they check a lot of "boxes". Anyone???

 

Anybody out there???

 

I await your review after your purchase!

 

At least one member here vouches for them.

https://www.4runners.com/threads/apache-offroad-upper-control-arms-new-500.43429/

 

https://youtu.be/huMztKaHsUE?si=K45xl6ncpV60btCS

 

They're a good arm for a good price. Made overseas of course, but I've never heard of any failures (or cracking/breaking like Ironman did). They use a proper Moog ball joint and rubber bushings, so they're quite similar to Dobinsons but at a lower price with not quite as good quality on the bushings and ball joints, from what I can tell. Still better than a lot of junky UCA's out there on the jungle website and other places.

I'll do a deal on a bunch if several people are interested

 

Thanks Crikeymike! That's very much about what I thought. They appear to be at least an option worth considering in my case.

 

I could have an interest. Shoot us some details on how many buyers, at what price, by what deadline.
Thanks.

 

Any reason you don't want JBA? They're a known quantity and about $100 less.

 

can you tell me more about what happened to the Ironman UCAs? I have an Ironman setup on my runner now and would love to know what to watch for.

 

Ironman recalled their UCA due to premature wear of the area around the balljoint leading to possible failure. Was for UCAs sold between Jan 2019 and June 2023. The 5th gen 4Runner UCAs were included, as were several other models.

I received a new set from Ironman and question the quality of the balljoints used in the "updated" version. I live in Texas and park in a garage. After 4 5 months and 3 5k miles, the ball joint boot clips and even the ball joints themselves are rusting. Ironman was less than helpful, claiming it's just surface rust and doesn't affect performance. Kind of funny as almost all rust starts on the "surface"

Will be swapping them out at some point and won't be buying anything from Ironman again.

 

Thanks, I’ll watch for rust as I live in New England and do not park in a garage. I got mine in 2024, so after the recall.

 

I'm interested in the group buy possibility as well.

 

I like the standard ball joint.

 

I can vouch for JBA. Outstanding UCAs. And there is no need to loosen the main bolt before greasing them.

 

I'm pretty confident they bought up whatever ball joints they could find to install in the recall replacement UCAs. So some may have gotten better parts and some worse. For reference, the ball joints in the original arms still look new and they were on for about 2 years. My biggest concern is how they can ensure durability when they have multiple unknown/untested vendors parts in production.

Hopefully, they got it worked out before yours were built. But good idea to keep and eye on them.

 

dont skimp out to save some $. You might spend more if something fails. I like Bilstein, OME and Camburg UCAs

 

I haven't found much info / feedback on the Bilstein UCAs. Anyone here running them?

 

Late to the chat - But Hello- We are based in Texas. We do not advertise much, but we are very active in the facebook groups - you will find most user reviews and such there. We are at some trade shows- like overland expo or toyota jamboree- but thats about it. If you message us at 2 am and need install help we will likely be around and answer back lol. If you are local and stranded in the middle of the night on a project, its not rare for us to hand deliver parts to people in a jam. We operate almost exlcusively off word of mouth, short of 30 or so dealers who also sell our products.

-We do not sponsor anyone and we do not have commissioned sales people.
-We are toyota people, who wheel, and expect our parts to withstand it. All of our parts are built to be used, be reliable, and easy to maintain. We have an extremely low / almost non existant product failure rate. Obviously nothing is industructible lol.
-We exclusively make parts at the moment for the 120 / 150 / Tacoma platforms though have started recently on some components for the TNGAF Platform (6th gen)- Some parts, like our swaybar links cross fit into 3rd gen Applications etc.

As for the UCAs - They are a very good product and align extremely well especially with the taller lifts (3-3.5") and they work well with extended / mid travel struts.
-We use a hardened rubber bushing and an OE sized Moog Problem solver joint (Greaseable)- K500018- This joint still utilizes a bronze gusher bearing- we do cut them apart periodically to make sure moog hasnt switched the design- these have been extremely long lasting joints and have not been problematic for us. I specifically am at around 70k miles on my joints, someone asked once on GXOR and i went back and emailed the customers who bought the original batch if they had changed the joints and out of the 15 or so people i talked to- everyone was still on the original joints- we launched these 5-6 years ago. That said these are OE sized, if you rather use a 555 joint message us and we will sell you a set without joints. Any OE sized for the 120/150 platform joint will fit - these platforms also use the same joint as the 100 series, and 200 series LC as well as the 2nd gen Tundra. These joints are also great as they are widely available and fairly inexpensive- Amazon and rockauto are usually the best priced, though they are available also at autozone, orielly etc.

-The only "Bushing" Issue we have had is we had one customer state that the arm was squeaking specifically between the steel sleeve and the long bolt- the bushing itself was fine- customer wasnt sure if their bolt was bent but decided to replace it all at once.
- We have not had a single arm failure or breakage.
-There are roughly 1500-2000 pairs of these on the road

We are also long time Dobinsons dealers and have been working with them for a while, i believe we were their second online dealer, as well as we are their highest volume dealer stateside - Their arms are also made well and are similar in build construction- they also use Hardnened rubber bushings and OE sized joints, though opted to use the 555 sealed joint. This joint generally is also a good joint, we dont see many issues with it. Dobinsons will also use the Same moogs at times when the 555 is unavailable.

-555s are hard to come by in the USA especially in any larger number of units needed for manufacturing. This may have changed but i was told by Sankie 555 years ago that Napa held the distribution rights in the USA. You can buy 555 from napa under the brand Altrom, sometimes you can also get them from partsgeek or theres a few other retailers that have them at times, but nearly impossible to obtain enough at one time - here at least. Dobinsons stocks them obviously as replacements though.

The biggest differences we have seen and heard back from our installers is that it is easier for them to achieve higher caster numbers with our arms when paired with taller lifts. But both sets of arms will suffice.

We value quality and reliability over profit, Dobinsons runs their business the same way- much of why we support the brand so much. As with our products, its very rare to see issues with their products.

 

If you are on facebook- join the toyota trucks of arkansas page- we are well known in that group and there are several people running our parts.