Lotus Development Website

Axles for manual hubs will be available March 21st, 2013.

I'd like to get some opinions and feedback from those that already have the Lotus Development CV axles or are thinking of getting them. Essentially we at LD developed a solution to the weak link in the outer joint of the OEM axle. OEM axles are good but let's face it, they were engineered to handle many miles on the pavement not the severe angles created by off-roading.

I went through 10 OEM and aftermarket axles before I got tired of spending my time fixing broken parts on the trail instead of wheeling. I'd heard about another company that made axles so strong that they were guaranteed not to break or replacement was free. $1000 each was a bit pricey but was willing to bite the bullet and went to buy a set but when I called to place an order found out that they didn't have any in production for the 3rd gen 4runner. I understand they have them available now but between the time they produced a set we developed our own solution to the weak outer joint on the CV axle. The LD axles are not touted to be unbreakable but they are also $1000 less per set.

In addition an axle can only get so strong before it doesn't really matter anymore because you just move the point of failure somewhere else. I'm actually hoping that as we get reports back from hard wheeling that the LD axle is the part that fails. Specifically the inner joint, the tripod, and not the spiders, ring, or pinion.

The Lotus Development axle is for the most part an OEM axle with the guts of the outer joint replaced with all new high strength parts. It's not just a stronger material but actually a different machined cage and race. The thicker walls of the cage, deeper cage edge, and chromoly steel make for and outer joint more than six times stronger than the OEM outer joint.

Originally I went to work on making these up for myself but since it wasn't a ton of extra work to make these available for others I figured it could be a good way to also recoup the high costs of a custom part in small quantities.

Here's the axle. Pretty boring looking right? It looks just like and OEM part because other than the guts of the outer joint it is the same. You can pull your OEM axle out and this will go back in exactly as an OEM upgrade should.





Here's the OEM cage vs the Lotus Development cage. OEM left, LD right.




The LD axles are $998 for the pair or $499 each. It's not chump change and IMHO if you never take your rig off-road then it's really not worth the cash. You won't likely see any benefit if you are a stay-on-the-pavement kind of driver, even in snow conditions. If however you do go off-roading where you flex out your suspension, rock crawl, or just want the piece of mind of not having the weaker out joints in a stock CV axle then I think it's worth considering or saving for.

Like I said, I went through 10 axles. Around here we can buy rebuilt axles for about $70 as long as we bring back the OEM core. I tried some aftermarket axles but they were even weaker than the Toyota ones and they were actually more expensive since they were new. In all I spent near a $1000 anyway just on the axles. Hopefully you aren't there yet!

The digger was a wheeling trip out to a mild trail here in Colorado called China Wall where a bit of snow and too much skinny pedal grenaded another axle. The shock load and/or broken parts also caused damage in my front differential and transfer case. After finding out that both the T-case and diff needed to be replaced or rebuilt it became a lot more apparent that swapping out axles isn't always the whole picture.

At any rate we made up the LD axles, ran them on a half a dozen trails including thousands of highway miles and some harder trails with rock crawling trails such as Blanca Peak, CO, Moab Rim, UT, Behind the Rocks, UT, etc. We've yet to break an axle and when that happens are happy to share the result of the breakage for the benefit and knowledge of everyone.

One last thing to clarify we are not claiming these to be unbreakable, nothing is. We are not also trying to make a cheaper version of an OEM axle. These have newly machined parts and we are making them in fairly small runs so prices ain't cheap. To the best of my knowledge though there isn't a stronger solution for less money.

Please post up your thoughts, interest, and concerns.


Axles are available for both A.D.D. and Manual hubs for both 3rd gen 4Runners and 1st gen Tacomas on our website.
Lotus Development Website

Thanks!

Glen