Uro tie rod end dead in 3 days.
 

My 124 300d had a loose drag link and I decided to replace the tie rod assemblies, damper and freshen up the idler arm while I was in there. The ball joints and lower control arm bushings were replaced a couple of months ago.

I started hearing a little knock when I hit bumps yesterday so I made sure to give things a once-over while replacing the tires today thinking I may have left something loose. Sure enough, the LH front tire had a lot of play. The LH inner tie rod end was shot. Way shot. There's at least .25" lateral movement in the joint. You get what you pay for.

Sorry to hear it.

URO = NO-NO

Uro = urine

they are trying to kill us, one by one....

A lot of the BMW message boards are posting problems with the URO parts too. It's not just the MBZ replacement parts

That's a pretty spectacular result in a short space of time.

When you remove it and replace it I'd be interested to see pictures of the inside parts or even to know if they put any grease in it.

2x on Army Im getting ready to do my front end.

URO flex discs turned my nice 91 560SEL into a parts car. They really do sell junk.

Please expand on this - I must have missed the story.

I took the part off and gave it a close look. There's no dramatic carnage to see, really nothing to see at all. The ball is tight in the plastic socket and it requires a healthy amount of force to make the socket articulate. The problem is that the plastic socket was not crimped tightly enough in the tie rod end metal housing so the whole socket, plastic and all slides back and forth.

I'm going to chock this up the lessons learned, contact the vendor to let them know of the problem, then replace both tie rod assemblies with better stuff. This is a low drama situation for a guy who does his own alignments. I'd be upset if I were paying someone else to do it.

While in no way defending substandard parts, after reassembly were you sure the tie rod assembly could be rotated? I've seen parts replaced , toe set and the tie rods were bound causing failures. ( Inner tie rod rotated in one direction and outer in the other then the adjusting sleeve tightened. )

Here; URO flex disc warning - Benzworld.org - Mercedes-Benz Discussion Forum

Great question. A noob could totally screw up that part. I made that mistake a long time ago. I've been doing front end work a living for a while now and I try not to make the same mistakes twice.

When a part magically costs many times less than the alternative, there's usually a reason.....and that reason is that the part is junk.

Way about 4 years ago I bought a complete front end kit on eBay.
All the Parts were URO.
I only used the Upper Control Arms and the lower Control Arm Bushings and have had no issues with them. But, I am a low mileage driver.

I found the URO Ball Joint (I never used them) ID where they would press in is actually fatter than the Lemfoerder one. That would make them Harder to install.

Never have used the Tie Rod or Drag link parts.

Even though it is a front end kit it came with the Plastic Sway Bar Links and Rear Trailing Arm Bushing (which I may be useing this year).