The 1st pair came without ball ends so I had to order a second set and send them back. The second set seemed fine until installed. They turned out to be an inch longer than the ones I had and didn't come with a wire lock to make them shorter during shipping. That meant I had to try to compress them. They were so stiff that I had to buy ratchet straps to compress them, which cost me more than the racks. After installation they seemed solid BUT one of the ends of the ball seemed to break during installation. 5 minutes of work turned into 24 hours getting the straps and I'm not sure the split ball would hold up. Generally not particularly impressed.