Is the Lemforder brand the only way to go these days as far getting 70-80K miles on a 200 series tie rod, or have they themselves had their quality downrated recently? Or, should the better question be, "is there anyone still out there that makes a higher end tie rod that will go more than 40-50K miles on a 200 series?". From research both here, and out on the web, it appears it's getting near impossible to find anyone that makes a tie rod that will last more than 40-50K miles. Here is what I have learned so far out on the web - please correct me if I am wrong:

1.) Katlyn, previously a late 1960's originated domestic manufacturer in Orange County, NY ("Orange County Choppers" territory) no longer manufactures tie rods in the USA and has shipped all production overseas to China. The Chinese renditions appear to be of extremely low quality.

2.) TRW, which was thought of a good, mid-range brand, has too been recently bought out by some conglomerate and that product line production has now been moved offshore as well. Recent web reviews for Chinese produced tie rods do not appear very favorable.

3.) there are many web retail resources that sell named brand (like Lemforder) tie rods, but in reality, the product shipped from these web retailers ends up being whatever is the web retailer stocked "product du jour". The 200 series Lemforder tie rods advertised on FCP are extremely competitively priced - has anyone ordered Lemforder tie rods from FCP recently and physically received Lemforder tie rods in the actual box? Is paying a little more Lemforder branded type product at an IPD type web retailer still probably the just safest way to go?

4.) Moog brand tie rods appear to have very favorable opinions, but appear to be just a good mid-range 50-60K mile tie rod, and not much more. No, yes?

5.) Lemforder was supposedly the old line OE manufacturer of Volvo 200 series tie rods, but that has supposedly changed as well recently. Correct me if I am wrong, but the has the Volvo dealership OE tie rods been moved to another manufacturer?

Other manufacturers appear to be Nordic, Meyle, Mevotech, Febi Bilstein, FEQ, and Beck/Arnley. Toyota supposedly uses Beck/Arnley parts for some of its OE tie rod applications, which is normal business practice for any type of manufacturer. Additionally, with any manufacturer, the quality used for the rubber chunk of the end of the tie rod appears to be just as important these days as the casting of the iron piece itself. The rubber end supposedly plays an important part in dispersing shock from the road, and thus, a cheap rubber end equates to dramatically reduced road quality, and more importantly, dramatically reduced lifespan of the product.

I being all this up because I have inner and outer tie road replacements probably due in the next year, and I'd like to put in something that will last more than 3-4 years. The killer part of this whole process is not so much the frequency of the product part change, but the extra 30% cost that is incurred during the process for the accompanying mandatory alignment. The extra $85-100 cost for the alignment is an absolute killer. Comments?