CV axle: OEM or A/M?

Long story short, I need to replace my driver side axle. The dealership wants a ridiculous amount of money for one so I was wondering if there are any pro/cons for OEM vs aftermarket. I'm leaning towards the Napa one, my GF works there and gets a discount. The standard Napa axle is $100, a heavy duty one form Rockauto is $64 and Toyota wants $546.86...ridiculous!

So does anyone have any recommendations on axles that are good quality and not too expensive. I'm leaving for vacation in 2.5 weeks so this came at the worst time.

Thanks everyone.

 

Napa's axles are A1 Cardone, straight up, nothing special about them except easy service. FYI, I happen to be sitting at work, and $100 is more than my cash customer price on all of them except the new w/HD outer boot, let alone employee discount.

Not a big fan of Cardone axles, although their new ones can be kinda OK. Normally I say go reman because at least the hard parts are quality (they're starting with OEM shaft, claws, bell, etc) but that ain't my experience with CV axles, they still screw them up. The other reason to go new is you can keep your OEM axle and get it rebuilt properly, and not lose your core $$$.

 

Only good thing about parts store axles is that they're cheap and have a lifetime warranty...which you'll probably have to use quite a bit more often than you would if you bought an OEM axle. Depending on how you use the truck. OEM axles are just better all around especially if you're hard on them.

Then there's aftermarket upgrades like RCV but I don't have any experience with those personally

I had a shop put in an FEQ aftermarket axle maybe 8 months ago and it's held up great to my surprise, but I don't see them in stores around here anywhere. Not sure where they got it from.

 

https://www.cvjreman.com/product-category/toyota-truck-axles/tacoma/

This and never look back. Good luck with your truck.

 

thanks for the input guys

 

I've learned the hard way: Toyota CV's all the way.

Cardone's/aftermarket suck on lifted ADD trucks and are cheese when you need them to actually work (wheeling, stuck, etc).

 

I just installed a CVJ axle. I would go this route again in a heartbeat.

 

CVJ with OEM axles is the ticket. They have boot and grease upgrades if you need them.

 

Thought I'd throw this out there, since it's 2025 and there doesn't seem to be much discussion on this recently (not that I could find anyway).

Being a relatively new owner of a 1st gen Tacoma, trying to figure this all out was enough to make my head spin. Especially when you haven't had enough sleep for 3 years (Tip: don't have kids in your 40's if you want to keep your cognitive abilities in tact).

Currently, after reading through all the forum posts I could bear, I've decided to go the CVJ reman route. I don't want to have to redo this job anytime soon, and it sounds like aftermarket are just too unreliable. I'd rather spend double the price and not have to worry about it for 6 years, than have to deal with this again anytime soon.

That being said, man, it seems prices have gone up. https://www.cvjreman.com/product-tag/9802/

I'm looking at $1160 for 2 of their "moderate angle" axles. That's with the $370 core fee, ~$30 tax, and ~$30 shipping. Crikey that's expensive, eh? I've decided it's worth it, mainly because I'm lucky enough to have OEM axles on the truck and will get the core fee back, bringing the price back down to ~$800. If I wasn't able to get the core fee back I'd probably go aftermarket.

Seems guys were talking about being able to get OEM remans for $200 not that long ago. Sign of the times I guess.

Also, something I hadn't heard anybody mention, is that apparently you simply cannot get new OEM 1st gen Tacoma axles anymore. They're discontinued. And I'm pretty sure the dealer said they don't offer remans anymore either. CVJ seems to be the best option out there.

All that being said, if anybody has any new info on decent quality aftermarket axles, here in 2025, I'd love to hear about em.

Cheers.