Six-Star Ball Joint

Every time you turn the steering wheel or go over a bump, the ball joint is constantly working and will wear down over time. Whether the rubber boot has torn causing a loss of grease or high mileage has taken it's toll, these are fairly straight forward to replace and are critical to your suspension as well as things like long term tire wear etc.

At Smart Service (and Smart Quality Parts), we have been carrying and using the Six Star brand in our repair facility for over 15 years. Since the majority of our in-house technicians are Subaru factory trained we understand the benefit and need for correctly fitting and functioning replacement parts. The benefit of being an independent facility is that we are not required to use the Genuine Subaru stamped parts but unlike other independents, we didn't want to use aftermarket parts just to cut costs and increase our margins.

We found Six Star in that search for the perfect balance between OEM quality and a more affordable price by cutting Subaru out as a middleman. We supplement with the Genuine Subaru parts where we feel that is needed or required if Six Star doesn't manufacture a certain part, but we mostly use Six Star because more often than not the part is identical to what you would buy at the dealer.

The description below outlines the color and sticker system on the parts you may receive. Please know that 90%+ of the Six Star parts we carry are the Gold Star OEM designation and the Red Star options are just as good in our opinion (see our replacement oil filter for example, you can see it cut open next to a Genuine Subaru filter there is no difference at all).

We offer our own private Six Star label parts that identifies OEM parts with a gold star:

and alternative source parts with a red star:

• Genuine = Exact part you would purchase at your Subaru dealer.


• OEM = Original Equipment Manufacturer. The part was made by the exact same manufacturer that made the original part for your car. For example if you open a genuine Subaru wheel bearing you will find that the bearing is an NSK bearing. If you buy that same bearing OEM you're getting the same part.


• Alternative Source = These are parts that are manufactured by an indepedent aftermarket parts facility. Our alternative source parts are put through the rigors at Smart Service before we offer them online.