I don’t think you can depend on any consistency from parts suppliers, they normally carry little stock and reorder when needed, what they get then is what everyone else is getting. just order 5 of each and do your own tests, cover one side in grease and leave it out in the sun, rain and give it a yank every now and then. expensive but only way if you want good. Some rubber boots would disintegrate within and few weeks of removing it from protective atmosphere packaging.
I have opened ball joint packaging before now, only to find the boot has perished in the packet. Granted, I may have had it in stock a year or so, but even so, you would expect slightly better..
I bet they would especially with having to replace them every year It would be nice to have a choice. I ended up reusing the old 40year old ones as the felt better than the new ones.
Or CV joint boots. Or steering rack bellows, not for the bus but still impossible to get good ones. When I asked the supplier if they sold decent quality ones because the last pair failed after a couple of years I was told ‘This does happen I think ,I had to buy some new tyres for my car at the weekend which is five years old and only done 17,000 and BMW wanted £180.00 each’. His reply didn’t really help.
They suck ...another vow bus guy in town had to change them , Too tight , my theory is they work ok for a car with power steering and a heavy engine up front. The vw dealer can’t get the original vw ones anymore. He recommended heyd, or torilson .
As rubber and plastics manufacturing is where I used to work, I might get some quotes to have some made and see about reproducing them in a quality material.
too tight think mine where too loose so I smashed them out with a big hammer and fitted febi ones for £49 ive had them before seem ok to me
I have, but they don't seem to fit snugly and seem to ride up ...off the tapered part of the joint . They come as flat as a pancake . Seem to recall i ordered one that was also suited for Crysler dodge pick up .
The story was that a major supplier to GM went out of business amd this reduced the supply of the right kind of materials for ball joint boots, so that only the major car manufacturers could get supplies and the smaller manufacturers could not. When I bought the CV boots from VWH that are described as best quality at £35 each, they came in VW/Audi branded boxes with a Use By date of 2021 printed on the label. I was looking at them yesterday and at a year old they have no cracks, already beating the GSF ones that lasted 3 months. Worth checking to see if the ball joint boots are actually being sold in VW boxes. VWH usually indicate manufacturer or country of origin on their website.
this is essentially correct all new replacement ball joints are constructed in different way to originals with biggest difference that originals are load bearing also the originals can be moved easily by hand. I still can get a set of original ball joints but they are not cheep.
those are original spec by OEM manufacturer manufactured in 80 possibly, load bearing, you can easily move them by hand just as they should be. I should be able to source one set.