Quote:
Originally Posted by riverwolf
OP, not exactly the answer you're looking for, but this topic has been beaten to death over the years.
My personal experience. Went with a NAPA new unit (lifetime warranty). Per the literature inside the box, it was a Cardone unit in a NAPA box. Visual inspection showed it to be identical to the factory unit it was replacing. Only a metallurgical analysis would determine whether or not it was in fact made by the same mfg as Toyota's. Want to say it was in the $70 range at the time.
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I also went with a NAPA new lifetime CV joint. No complaints. They are nice looking and I’ve probably got 25,000 trouble free miles on that one so far.
OEM, CVJ, or the Napa ones. Nothing else. (And there are different ones from NAPA and one is OEM level supposedly and the other is not, dig around, you’ll know it when the parts dude shows it to you, they are stout and look very similar to OEM).
Deep in a thread (I read for days about this topic), some guy claimed his uncle (edit: father in law) worked a a dealer, and said they would use the NAPA ones when they couldn’t get the OEM ones from the yota distributor. He claimed they were identical and that they came from the same manufacturer.
If you don’t do any hardcore rock crawling, you’ll be fine. Beware, some in the hard core off roading world call these “SNAPA” CV joints, because they snap so easily! But so do OEM ones. Those guys carry an extra or two just in case!! YMMV, of course.
I’ll look for that post about the father in law for you.
EDIT:
Here it is, Post #14:
If you have used NAPA cv axles please reply