It's been on almost a year now and looks like new. I live in Texas and there has not been any mud to speak of iv been driven in the lake a few times and rock crawling only 4 weekends this year so I'm guessing it's going to hold up fine. I'm sure there is a scratch but finding it would be hard.
My sway bar has been off for two years on a daily driver not sure if I could tell on road what it was doing but off road it sure got better without it I know they make disconnects for my Tj I don't think I'll wast that money
U joints are just a starting point that's cheap to fix I have had them make noise in 4wd but not 2 I have even had one make noise when turning and one just a shake with no noise it may end up being in your t case u do have a chain in it but most of the time it's something that is meet to be...
The only upgrades I have is k&n air filter 1.75 lift and 2.25 body lift and ac plugs that's it oh I put spacers on the wheels. I was thinking I lost mgh but it turned out my speedometer is off about 7 or 8 mi from my gps so I'm getting that fixed today I hope