Don't off-road with a cheap CV axle.

I was trying to figure out what what was causing my front end vibration. Not wanting to spend a fortune on parts I bought a cheap made in China set of cv axles. Turns out my vibe was wheel bearings.

Today I was taking my boys to do some snow shoe squirrel hunting. The road had a big plow berm blocking it. I put it in low range and attempted to go around the pile. Things were going great after all my Tacoma gets around pretty awesome. About half way through the berm we heard a pop. And a noticeable loss in traction. I have read on here that cheap CV joints have a tendency to grenade. I knew exactly what had happened.
I was able to shovel out and with the help of the rear diff locker get out. I then used the boot to keep the cv centered as I drove home at 25 mph.

The original Toyota CV shafts are back in as Tacoma's are really easy to work on.

Moral to the story is spend the money on good CV shafts. Lol.

 

What brand is it & where did you buy it? Thanks.

 

Looks like a cardone axle. I have aftermarket cv axles which scares me, but I have wheeled the hell out of my truck and zero failures

 

ODM got them on eBay for $60 each. The shaft diameter is about 3mm smaller than Toyota and who knows about the quality of the steel. They have a warranty but it comes with a modified disclaimer. I am lifted and running bigger tires than stock.
I was amazed at how easy it broke. I could see on rocks or something but in snow the tires should spin way before that shaft pops.

 

What brand are you running? I'm sure there are plenty of aftermarket shafts that are worth using. If I was planning on serious off-roading I'll take some tools and a spare shaft it's easy to swap and that would save a trip.

 

right now im running these ones from napa. they seem OK but the outer joint is noticeably smaller than OEM. I ran napa re mans before these and i had zero issues. I was worried that these ones would fail but i did some 4lo rock crawling and they held up fine (so far) i do carry a spare cv though

 

I bought some LCAs from Napa not enough 6 months ago and the ball joint is already cracked on side