SPC control arms

Do your SPC control arms make a little noise?

 

I have had them on my 2022 ORP for 2 1/2 years and 10K miles and that is after swapping them from my 2020 ORP with 17K miles where they had been installed for 2 1/2 years. They make no noise at all. I love that by installing those control arms, I did not have to cut/chop anything to avoid tire rub with 285/70/17 tires.

 

When they are working correctly, no. Degraded pivot bushing or ball joint could make noise.

 

I have had them since zero miles paired with Kings mid travel. I have had two pairs replaced under warranty. You will know when they are creaking in my experience. Either very quiet , or real loud.

 

No noise from mine, though only 5k miles on them. So far, so good and am very pleased with them.

 

I had spc on my 3rd gen tacoma for 4 years with zero issues. Make sure to grease them.

 

Warrantied my first set with ball joint / bushing play after 20k, no noise. So far so good 20k into my 2nd set w/ no noise or play. I have the 2nd generation? ball joints w/ zerk fittings. I prefer being able to grease them than them being sealed. I shoot a little bit of grease in them every 5k with my oil changes.

 

Yeah mine are unfortunately sealed (new style), but my offroad shop indicated they can install zerk's which is what I'm most likely going to do. I'm with Scarif_1, prefer to be able to put in grease as needed.

 

I’m actually interested in how the new sealed ball joints (those in black) perform coming off the heels of all those warranty claims so keep us updated. SPCs reputation took a dive with that bad batch so surely there’s an improvement with the newer ball joints.

 

I only have 4k on mine so far, so too early to tell. Overall I'm not a fan of the "sealed for life" philosophy, but its what was installed when I did the lift. Will definitely update the group should something happen though for sure.

 

No.

 

I’m installing the black sealed ones that don’t have an option to insert a grease zerk. Interested to see if it changes the noises I’m hearing on bumps. When jacked up and front suspension drooped, my UCAs are crazy loose at the ball joint when you bang on them.

 

Check to make sure the washers are installed correctly. I've seen them flipped before.

 

Mine started clunking pretty bad in the first year of use. SPC denied the warranty claim so I decided to go with a different brand instead of replacing proprietary ball joints every year. And yes I greased them per their instructions.

Personally, I'm not a fan of SPC if you go off road often. Quite a few rigs in my area experienced similar failures and switched over to Dobinsons, JBA or Apache.

 

https://www.4runners.com/threads/spc-uca-failures.31675/page-2

 

Yes they do if you got the bad batch of bushings from 2019. I dealt with this problems & it was a terrible experience with SPC. If you ever have to file a defective product with them, pray you don't get Todd...

 

That's crazy. I expect to be in the market for new UCAs and for sure would stay away from SPC. Would prefer something that doesn't need routine maintenance and can prematurely fail. All the adjustability is useless in my book.

 

Then go dobinson.

Or if you don't mind greasing them every oil change go jba.

 

*2025 NEW DESIGN* SPC UCA’s and balljoints just surpassed 5000 miles on my truck, and subsequently I booked my 4wd shop inspection appointment for Nov. 1.

As part of a one-time promo I was selected for, my all new UCA’s are being periodically inspected and tested directly in coordination with SPC. If they fail, I get new brand of UCA’s installed free.

 

New spc joints are sealed, no grease zerk. The ball size has been increased and is no longer a telescopic joint. Also the arm and bushing design has been modified. But, don’t b fooled by the 2024 SPC facelift, whereby they switched the joint to sealed/non-grease zerk, these STILL failed prematurely - I ran them.

When it comes to the 2025 re-design, so far so good for me, but I’m not recommending SPC just yet. I’m keeping ya’ll posted with real-world off-road testing of this new design, no one else is doing what I’m doing

 

I guess it’s nice to know they seem to be making an honest effort.

 

My thoughts exactly. I jumped at the opportunity to enter the promo contest for free UCA’s and won…I never win anything

 

I've got the 2024's on mine, the shop said they were an improvement over the previous. I had asked for JBA but they only dealt with SPC.

 

Ya man I was also told they were improved, I was happy about the sealed boot, but the joint was shot in a year..sadly there was clear play. It’s always possible maybe someone out there got the new new design before the turn of 2025 - way you can tell is that the old design is silver, new design has black metal parts.

 

You have to buy jba. They do not deal with thrid parties. If your good with greasing your bushings every oil change jba are probably the best on the market. Ive been running them for 50k miles now.

 

I wouldn't recommend them if you offroad your 4runner often. On my 2nd pair with the new ball joints within 2.5 years. First pair, ball joints and the bushing went within 15k kms. Second pair, ball joints are starting to clunk again as well as the bushings are squeaking like crazy. Both ran for a year and a bit, lots of offroading trips, at least 2-3 times a month. Switching over to dobinsons soon.

 

I very much dislike not being able to grease the ball joints. I wasn’t aware of this until after the install.

 

I disagree with the logic, OE balljoints are sealed and they last. Many leading brands are sealed. One of the UCA brands even uses OE balljoints. Having to grease my original SPC’s was a small part of the failure problem, if you are inexperienced like me and wait too long, or overfill (I did both), then it opens the door to extra stress and wear.

 

If youre talking about SPC, there is a new 2025 design. Everything prior will fail prematurely, you are correct.

 

I just don’t see how “greased for life” actually works. Theres fittings on virtually every other fitting as the grease degrades and disappears over time, thus the need to reapply.