Driveshaft Brands?

Does anyone have any experience with off-brand drive shafts? I need a new front driveshaft and have a few options:

Toyota OEM: $550
A1 Cardone: $315
Dorman $341

Any help/suggestions appreciated!

 

Might want to lookup car-part.com and may be able to find a good used one, should be around $100

 

Good looks! Found one for exactly $100, shipped.

 

Nice! Cant beat that

 

Somewhat of a threadjack but are all 3.4 MT 4x4 front and rear driveshafts the same for 96-04?

 

There's a custom driveshaft that alot of people use...and for the life of me, I cant remember what it is.

 

I want to say that somewhere around 01 the bolt pattern, or maybe the size of the bolts got bigger. I'm not 100% sure though...

 

Rear ds's differ between automatic and manual on 4wd trucks. The front shaft on the rear ds is longer on a manual and an inch shorter on an automatic.

I've been told repeatedly the fronts are the same length. But when I converted to manual I ended up using the 5 speeds companion front ds, because the auto ds was an inch longer.
I never tried pulling the slip yoke zerk and evacuating any extra grease.. . Maybe I'll try that today...