Tie-Rod End...Which Brand?

Dillyo82

Original poster
Member
Aug 17, 2012
80
I'm buying a Driver's Side Tie-Rod End and want to know if TRW is a good Brand? The price is Right and I can pick-up locally for $39.99 (Part No. ES359R).

I can get a Mevotech (Haven't heard of this brand either) Part # MES3675 for $36.79 from Rockauto, but will have to pay for shipping and wait.

Is there really a difference? Should I get another brand for the same ballpark price?

P.S. Would I need to get an Alignment if I Count turns and Measure before and after replacement?
 

6716

Member
Jul 24, 2012
821
Dillyo82 said:
I'm buying a Driver's Side Tie-Rod End and want to know if TRW is a good Brand? The price is Right and I can pick-up locally for $39.99 (Part No. ES359R).

I can get a Mevotech (Haven't heard of this brand either) Part # MES3675 for $36.79 from Rockauto, but will have to pay for shipping and wait.

Is there really a difference? Should I get another brand for the same ballpark price?

P.S. Would I need to get an Alignment if I Count turns and Measure before and after replacement?

Before I decided to do my own wrenching, I had Firestone change the driver's tie rod end. They used Moog. $3 for a week-long wait seems like a good reason to buy local to me.

I suppose you might find a shop that would do a free alignment "check" and see how well you did. I popped for the lifetime alignment at Firestone (they still do my oil and tire rotation) and it seems like a good deal. They will re-set your alignment every 5-6K miles (which for me is every three months) with that service.

You might could use an alignment anyway, even if you got the tire rod end back to exactly where it was before.
 

Dillyo82

Original poster
Member
Aug 17, 2012
80
6716 said:
Before I decided to do my own wrenching, I had Firestone change the driver's tie rod end. They used Moog. $3 for a week-long wait seems like a good reason to buy local to me.

I suppose you might find a shop that would do a free alignment "check" and see how well you did. I popped for the lifetime alignment at Firestone (they still do my oil and tire rotation) and it seems like a good deal. They will re-set your alignment every 5-6K miles (which for me is every three months) with that service.

You might could use an alignment anyway, even if you got the tire rod end back to exactly where it was before.

Yeah, Moog are twice as expensive, but I'm sure are great. I'll look into the alignment because I haven't had one since I bought the truck 60k miles ago.
 

jrSS

Member
Dec 4, 2011
3,950
Moogs are nice AND greasable BUT....when I bought mine, the damn things didn't come with a new jam nut. Around $100 a piece.
 

bore_pig

Member
Nov 25, 2011
113
Can't go wrong with moog, but get whatever is in your price range and local. I would plan on an alignment afterwards.
 

meerschm

Member
Aug 26, 2012
1,079
How long do you plan to keep your TB? saving labor could go a long way to pay for a lifetime allignment, and if one side is bad, how far behind can the other be?
 

Mooseman

Moderator
Dec 4, 2011
25,257
Ottawa, ON
You know, everybody says Moog, Moog, Moog. Personally, I have never been impressed by them, having seen them fail just as much as, if not more than, other brands. In fact, I'll be replacing a pair of Moog Problem Solver outer tie rods with Mevotechs. And I just noticed that the Moogs are non-greasable.
 

Matt

Member
Dec 2, 2011
4,019
I have the Mevotechs in both the left and right sides. Quality part, greasable but with no jam nut. IIRC, RockAuto only took a couple of days to ship them to me.

Also, Mevotech is a Canadian company that manufactures most of their stuff in Turkey, amongst other places...but not China.
 

The_Roadie

Lifetime VIP Donor
Member
Nov 19, 2011
9,957
Portland, OR
Matt said:
Also, Mevotech is a Canadian company that manufactures most of their stuff in Turkey, amongst other places...but not China.
I have their stuff, and also some Deeza parts. Deeza (check their web site) just moved into a new 280,000 sq ft facility in Turkey.
 

Mooseman

Moderator
Dec 4, 2011
25,257
Ottawa, ON
I retract what I said about Mevotech. They are cheap chinese crud. I just took delivery of a set of inner and outer tie rods for my TB as well as a set of outers for my son's Honda Accord. One of the outers for the TB has incomplete cut threads on the stem towards the joint end and one of the Honda tie rods is cracked right in the threaded hole portion. The one for the TB is useable as the damaged thread is at the end where it isn't used but the cracked one is totally unsafe to use.

Now I ordered all this though RockAuto and picked them up from the UPS store in Ogdensburg NY, saving on shipping. It's not worth it for me to ship them back to RA as it would cost me as much as buying one locally and would have to wait two weeks. I called Mevotech (a Canadian company), explained the situation and they absolutely refused to try and resolve this. Asked if they were concerned about these parts that should have failed quality control and they said no. I would have to deal with RA for any part return. I basically told her that I would be posting bad reviews on the internet that their stuff was cheap chinese crap and she "go ahead".

And so I just did :hissyfit:
 
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TangoBravo

Member
Dec 5, 2011
208
Good job, I use rockauto all the time but I only use them to get cheaper name brand parts, I have never purchased any of the lowerend stuff they carry. With that being said please keep us posted as to what RA does to correct the issue, I do alot of buisness with them but have never had to return anything.
FWIW I usually get moog or acdelco parts. You get what you pay for.
 

Sparky

Member
Dec 4, 2011
12,927
Mooseman said:
You know, everybody says Moog, Moog, Moog. Personally, I have never been impressed by them, having seen them fail just as much as, if not more than, other brands. In fact, I'll be replacing a pair of Moog Problem Solver outer tie rods with Mevotechs. And I just noticed that the Moogs are non-greasable.

That doesn't seem right. I have Moogs all over on my Trailblazer (outer tie rods, upper and lower ball joints) and all of them are greaseable. I don't think Moog even makes non-greaseable parts that I've ever seen :confused:
 
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TangoBravo

Member
Dec 5, 2011
208
Sparky said:
That doesn't seem right. I have Moogs all over on my Trailblazer (outer tie rods, upper and lower ball joints) and all of them are greaseable. I don't think Moog even makes non-greaseable parts that I've ever seen :confused:

Yeah, I don't believe any of my moog parts are non-greasable either. As a matter of fact I just got new ujoints that are moog and I didn't have an option for greasable or not.
 

Matt

Member
Dec 2, 2011
4,019
Mooseman said:
I retract what I said about Mevotech. They are cheap chinese crud. I just took delivery of a set of inner and outer tie rods for my TB as well as a set of outers for my son's Honda Accord. One of the outers for the TB has incomplete cut threads on the stem towards the joint end and one of the Honda tie rods is cracked right in the threaded hole portion. The one for the TB is useable as the damaged thread is at the end where it isn't used but the cracked one is totally unsafe to use.

Now I ordered all this though RockAuto and picked them up from the UPS store in Ogdensburg NY, saving on shipping. It's not worth it for me to ship them back to RA as it would cost me as much as buying one locally and would have to wait two weeks. I called Mevotech (a Canadian company), explained the situation and they absolutely refused to try and resolve this. Asked if they were concerned about these parts that should have failed quality control and they said no. I would have to deal with RA for any part return. I basically told her that I would be posting bad reviews on the internet that their stuff was cheap chinese crap and she "go ahead".

And so I just did :hissyfit:


WOW! :yikes:
 

Mooseman

Moderator
Dec 4, 2011
25,257
Ottawa, ON
Here are the pics of the Moogs from RockAuto's catalog:

These are for those with the first design 14mm threads and are not greasable:
More Information for MOOG ES3578

And these are for those with the 2nd design with 16mm threads and are greasable:
More Information for MOOG ES3676

Apart from the thread size difference, I don't know why the joint end would be different. So not all Moogs are greasable.

Oh, and another black mark for Mevotech on the lower balljoints I installed last year. I noticed that the boots have slipped off from the joints and allowing water and dirt into the joints. I tried pushing them back on but they won't stay on the joint. They're still solid but I don't expect this for very long. More than likely I'll be giving the Deeza a go.
 
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TangoBravo

Member
Dec 5, 2011
208
Those parts have the same description except the one includes castle nut and cotter pin. How do you see one is not greaseable and the other is? Because from what I read they both sound greaseable.
 

Mooseman

Moderator
Dec 4, 2011
25,257
Ottawa, ON
If you look at the pics of the 14mm part, it doesn't have a hole on the bottom and there is no zerk fitting included. The description is just a generic one they use for all of their parts.
 

TangoBravo

Member
Dec 5, 2011
208
IDK man, I guess you found one of the very few moog parts that arent greaseable. I don't ever even check when I order moog parts because I have never got one that wasn't greaseable. Guess I will need to pay more attention, altho I don't really see a differance in those two spacific parts that would lead me to think one was and one wasn't. Neither show a zert fitting in the pic and both info sounds to me that they are. IDK my moog ujoints didn't show a zert but they certainly came with em. To each his own but moog parts are certainly better quality then some canadian or friken jap brand thats for sure.
 

Dillyo82

Original poster
Member
Aug 17, 2012
80
I ended up going to AutoZone and getting a Duralast. Yeah it was made in Taiwan, but has a Lifetime Warranty for $49. It looks well made and matched my OEM in size as well. The whole thing went too smoothly. Air Tools make it a lot better too. It also came with new nuts for both ends as well. Oh yeah, make sure you have wrenches bigger than 21mm. I couldn't quite find an exact size Metric or SAE for the jam nut, so I used an Adjustable wrench to wedge against the Frame as I loosened the jam nut. The outer nut came right off and a Pickle fork forced the stud out nicely. Thanks for your help, Yet again! GMTNATION RULES!:wootwoot:
 

Matt

Member
Dec 2, 2011
4,019
The jam nut is 22mm.
 

Fire06

Member
Dec 18, 2011
7,223
Always have had good luck with Moog. Maybe just me but they have always seemed well made.
 

Dillyo82

Original poster
Member
Aug 17, 2012
80
Matt said:
The jam nut is 22mm.

It was loose with the 22mm but the 21mm wouldn't fit. This was the Original nut too, not the new one. It was even worse with SAE. Maybe it was the Wrenches? Wasn't that big of a deal though I just used the 22mm on the nut loosening and the adjustable wrench to hold the stationary one closest to the inner tie-rod. All good now. took 1.5 hrs taking it easy and using Calipers to measure and triple checking everything. Oh, and it was 22 turns into the inner tie-rod if that can help anyone with a ballpark figure.
 

Hypnotoad

Member
Dec 5, 2011
1,584
Dillyo82 said:
I ended up going to AutoZone and getting a Duralast. Yeah it was made in Taiwan, but has a Lifetime Warranty for $49. It looks well made and matched my OEM in size as well. The whole thing went too smoothly. Air Tools make it a lot better too. It also came with new nuts for both ends as well. Oh yeah, make sure you have wrenches bigger than 21mm. I couldn't quite find an exact size Metric or SAE for the jam nut, so I used an Adjustable wrench to wedge against the Frame as I loosened the jam nut. The outer nut came right off and a Pickle fork forced the stud out nicely. Thanks for your help, Yet again! GMTNATION RULES!:wootwoot:

I used an Autozone outer tie rod and it snapped while my wife was driving with my 4 month old daughter. Although, it wasn't the lifetime tie rod, it had a 2 year warranty. It lasted just long enough to be out of warranty.
 

Regulator

Member
Nov 20, 2011
2,496
Hypnotoad said:
I used an Autozone outer tie rod and it snapped while my wife was driving with my 4 month old daughter. Although, it wasn't the lifetime tie rod, it had a 2 year warranty. It lasted just long enough to be out of warranty.

Tie rods and ball joints are two parts that you certainly don't want to be frugal about. A cheep sway bar end link fails, not really a big deal, a cheep wheel bearing fails, again not really catastrophic, but if a ball joint or tie rod fails your talking about good potential for body damage and even the possibility of the wheel leaving the vehicle. At 10 miles an hour this may not be a big issue, at 70 miles an hour this may very well be life threatening.

Keep in mind that this is coming from an avid Salvage Yard patron. I have replaced a good portion of my truck out of the yards, but items like this I always pick up Moog parts for. They have a great reputation and have always been a solid part for me.
 

Matt

Member
Dec 2, 2011
4,019
Dillyo82 said:
It was loose with the 22mm but the 21mm wouldn't fit. This was the Original nut too, not the new one. It was even worse with SAE. Maybe it was the Wrenches? Wasn't that big of a deal though I just used the 22mm on the nut loosening and the adjustable wrench to hold the stationary one closest to the inner tie-rod. All good now. took 1.5 hrs taking it easy and using Calipers to measure and triple checking everything. Oh, and it was 22 turns into the inner tie-rod if that can help anyone with a ballpark figure.

Pretty much every nut and bolt in our trucks are metric, so I wouldn't even mess around with SAE ("imperial" in my speak). Could have been the wrenches because I don't remember and sloppiness when I did mine a couple of months ago.

Mine was only about 17 or 18 turns, so I think it varies vehicle to vehicle.
 

Dillyo82

Original poster
Member
Aug 17, 2012
80
Matt said:
Pretty much every nut and bolt in our trucks are metric, so I wouldn't even mess around with SAE ("imperial" in my speak). Could have been the wrenches because I don't remember and sloppiness when I did mine a couple of months ago.

Mine was only about 17 or 18 turns, so I think it varies vehicle to vehicle.

If anything I could go another 2 turns IN to bring my Toe to Zero. It's just a little in on both when looking parallel with the rear.
Hear's the video I watched:
[video=youtube;OzN0Z2HupcM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzN0Z2HupcM[/video]
 

Matt

Member
Dec 2, 2011
4,019
Dillyo82 said:
If anything I could go another 2 turns IN to bring my Toe to Zero. It's just a little in on both when looking parallel with the rear.
Hear's the video I watched:
[video=youtube;OzN0Z2HupcM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzN0Z2HupcM[/video]

You'll still need to get an alignment done if you want it 100%...which reminds me I still have to get a proper alignment done. :biggrin:
 

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