What brand are those arms?

 

As a couple of guys have posted before me price is not the only issue. Quality is most important. Cheap will frustrate you endlessly. My Jeep articulates silently. I've been out with othr Jeeps the squeek form every corner constantly. More important than cost is the quality of the joints and bushings. Find out if they are set up to be greased, are they rebuildable, are the parts available, can you do it yourself, and what is the cost of the parts. There are arms out there where shops tell me it's cheaper to replace the arm than rebuild the bushing. And there are arms that are noisy and apparently can't be made quieter. And there are arms that provide little or no isolation from the chassis and therefore give a less than satisfactroy ride down the road; especially in a hardtop.

Where do these arms come from. I just picked up my TJ that I'd been letting my daughter use (she's a lucky girl - I just bought her a new Mini Cooper). She had lightly tagged a car which had bent the front twin tube with hoop Smittybuilt bumper. Talk about soft lousy material; after working with it to straighten it I think it was a mere ornament and not much of a bumper. I wouldn't want generic cheap control arms sourced from Asia as part of my suspension. There is a reason domestic manufacterers use quality DOM steel. I'm not trying to rain on your parade; but that price seems awefully cheap.

 

You can get a full set of Currie arms from Northridge for about $950 shipped. That's $100 to $200 more than the "low priced set" you're looking at. As was said before, that seems pretty cheap for a full set of control arms.

 

The Daystar Complete Adjustable Control Arm Set on Quadratec's website is $849.99 online and the same set was listed for $764.99 in 4WD.com's 2008 catalog. The cover of the 4WD catalog says to take 10% off any 1 item which would make them under $700 if these prices are still good.

I don't know how their quality is on control arms, maybe someone else can give their opinion.

 

I just checked on the Currie arms at Northridge's website. They're not available as a complete set but I added all of them to a cart individually and they come to $944.90 including shipping.

The Daystar's at Quadratec.com came to only $899.98 shipped and the "new" price at 4WD.com is $904.99 plus shipping. That's a big jump from the catalog price even if they still give a 10% discount.

I may be going with Northridge on this purchase after all... I'll have to look into this more. Anybody ever use the Daystars???

 

I'd like to hear some input on these from others. When I did a Google search I came up with not as much as I would have thought. But when they self describe as a "worldwide manufacturer"........... I peruse half a dozen JK forums and have never even heard about these being run. And in fact until you mentioned them I had no idea they made them. My money is that they are a Chinese import made of substandard material designed to hit a price point. I'd recomend looking at a quality American product and not worrying about price so much. My gut feling is that you'd be better off starting out with a quality set of front and rear lowers and then adding uppers as bucks become available rather than buying a cheap set.

 

I haven't heard anything about the Daystar control arms, maybe somebody else has some input on those. I have heard about Currie arms and for $45 there would be no question for me, I'd be going with Currie from Northridge.

 

daystar arms work well enough but they do use polyurethane bushings. in other words, they will be prone to squeaking if you don't grease them on a regular basis. as far as currie arms go, they are about the best around when it comes to maximum bind free articulation.

 

I have a question about this! Has anyone ever purchased the bushing ends from companies that offer "builders parts", and had the bushing end cut off of their stockers, and tapped and threaded the new "adjustable" ends onto their stock control arms? That seems like a cost effective way to go, and it's one I'm considering doing. I'll bet you can buy the parts and have a fab shop do the tapping on them for relatively cheap!

 

WTF! I swear Northridge just upped the price on FT adjustable front CA's.........