MOOG does have some parts made bespoke to them, but they also rebrand parts from other manufacturers. Some of MOOG's parts are excellent and some are not. It all depends. In my experience, as it relates to the Vanagon, MOOG upper ball joints, steering rack boots, tie rods, and tie rod ends are excellent. Their lower ball joints used to be excellent, but the last batch that I received were not. Recently, MOOG switched their source for lower ball joints. The previous LBJs had aluminum inserts in them for the ball to ride against. Their newest source uses plastic inserts which will wear/pound out very quickly. I sent back my entire pallet of LBJs for this reason. Lemforder used to make excellent upper and lower ball joints, but since they started making their UBJs in China, the quality of those particular parts went downhill fast. However, the good news is that Lemforder LBJs are still made in Germany. At least the last pallet I got of those are. I guess we'll see how long that lasts. 

Christopher

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of John Rodgers
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2019 9:35 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Parts

Can anyone attest as to the quality of MOOG Auto Parts?

John