From my email exchange...
I replied, letting him know that my Jeep is daily driven with slightly above average off road usage.
Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. If you ask just about anyone about the older RE front trackbar and the durability of cheaper rod ends in that application, very few will say that it is a good idea. Vertical bolt, lots of travel which translates into the race moving across the face of the ball which carries dirt and contamination into the joint plus lower on the quality spectrum to begin with equals a relatively short life span.
Inversely, the much lower misalignment heavy duty FK JMXL series versions used with a horizontal bolt that only has a very small amount of wiping across the face will last just about indefinitely. Or they have in the hundreds I've used for track bars, tie rods and upper control arms in triangulated applications. But, they are 45-55 bucks each depending on where you buy them. In a tie rod, they are being used with 37-40" tires, lots of hard hydro assisted use and we almost never replace them. I say almost never because I don't specifically recall the last one I replaced over the last 10 years.
We use the same series on the ends of 1.75" hydro assist cylinders and I know I've never replaced one there. Same thing though, no lateral wiping across the face to carry dirt into the race. You also have no way to convince me to ever run one with a vertical bolt. Didn't work for RE, I see no way to make it work for anyone else.
If you run the bolt horizontal, you don't need the high misalignment, if you don't need that, then you can run the HD versions which have a larger shank diameter than the hole through the ball. Since the shank is larger, that increases the race size around the same size ball and they just don't wear out very much.
