Aftermarket parts brand recommendations.

A

Avocet

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Morning all,
I'm patching up the daughter's 2010 Mazda 2 for youngest son to learn to drive in. Over the years, she's well and truly had her money's worth out of it, and it's been somewhat neglected of late. Latest job is a bottom balljoint. However, for not much more, I can get a complete bottom arm. Trouble is, there are a lot of brands I've never heard of. Do any of you have any experience of any of these brands, please?

Ridex
Meyle
Opitmal
Vaico
Stark
Moog
NTY

Of the brands I've heard of, I can get TRW for about £60, Delphi for about £45 and Lemforder for about £50.
As far as I can tell, the bushes in the OE ones still look good, and they're not too rusty, so another option, is to keep them and just get a good quality (FAG or Corteco) balljoint (they're a press-in fit with a circlip) for about £20. Question is, whether the original Ford / Mazda bushes will go on to outlast new aftermarket ones...

(Car has 125,000 on it now).
 
Mottie said:
Only one I’ve heard of is Meyle. Don't **** about, put a complete wishbone on.
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Yes, I'm leaning in that general direction. They'll have to come off anyway to get them in the press to push the old balljoint out...
 
I've heard of most of them but I've only used Meyle and Delphi. I think AC delco morphed into Delphi and are part of the GM group.
I'm with Mottie, don't muck about with bushes, fit the arm.
 
Meyle and moog are decent, I use meyle HD stuff alot as it usually has a 4 year warranty which is longer than I keep most cars so I know it'll last my ownership
 
Thanks all. I've gone for a pair of TRW arms from Autodoc. (Now I'll see how long it takes them to arrive...)!
 
Avocet said:
Thanks all. I've gone for a pair of TRW arms from Autodoc. (Now I'll see how long it takes them to arrive...)!
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Only ever used AD once for a auto-box service kit that contained the wrong filter; sent the item back (at my expense) only to be told that they couldn't replace it as it was part of a kit & required the entire order back in order to do so, which I obviously couldn't do because the old fluid had been drained before the filter mistake was realised & I had to use the fluid content of the kit to keep the car useable. They even offered to send the incorrect filter back to me, again at my expense :mad:

AD may well be good on price, but their customer care is a complete joke & I for one will never use them again.
 
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Given that the Op, Avocet, has already ordered the part, further advice re which is the best aftermarket brand to buy isn't really needed.
 
Thanks again everyone. I've had good service from AutoDoc pre-Brexit, but my first order post-Brexit took forever to arrive. I was wondering if things had improved since, so I thought I'd give them a go. However, that was 2 days ago and so far, I've had an order acknowledgment, but nothing saying it has been posted",,
 
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