The long story short:
Is it normal, that CV-joint sort of shifts / protrudes when the wheel is rotated off the horizontal axis? Driver's side CV-joint stays still when turned. See videos.


The long story:
Last year I had that clicking sound while turning the wheels coming, from driver's side - so I replaced the driver side axle (I replaced axles on my other cars before so I knew what that noise was). Replace with Empire.EMPIRE803241
Soon thereafter, passenger side started to go (~ 90k). So I purchased identical Empire for the right side and replaced. I don't remember I did something really bad trying to get the hub on the axle - as usual a sledge hammer on the wooden block, gently, until I could put on the nut.

Clicking while turning was gone, but clicking on the cold start was there. So it degrades slowly. I'd say, clicking is there for any change of torque from the engine (accelerating or braking), but nothing on turning the wheels. I could not believe it was the new axle, but it looks like it (and it's almost a year old already).

Today I did that intermediate shaft heat shield adjustment; did not help. So look at videos (they are pretty much the same).

 

There are 2 different length axles for the TL.
Left side (Drivers) 26 5/8 in length (Empire 803241)
Right side (Pass) 24 1/16" in length (Empire 803242)

 

Thanks for the clarification. I meant the same identical brand indeed.

 

I'm having the same issue I just tried installing a aftermarket right side CV axle and it was loose on the splines. I took it back off and measured the splines on the factory compared to the aftermarket and the aftermarket was .030 larger than the factory .I tried going to a oriellys to try a different brand aftermarket axle and it was even worse I don't know what the deal is. the driver side was fine but apparently there's a problem with the passenger. I ended up ordering a factory shaft I'm still waiting on it to get here. heel toe auto has insane shafts that are cheaper than a factory wish I would've known that before I ordered. Try taking it off and using dial calipers measure the splines I bet anything the splines of the joint you have is too big.

 

I don't think splines' longer length matters (did you mean "longer" by "larger" ?) . Aftermarket makes them longer so they can fit into respective ends without a hitch. Should they accidentally make it shorter, they won't go the whole way in, at least on the engine side - I don't think the distance the axle can be inserted into the intermediate shaft depends on splines; it can go up to a specific position.

I don't think splines are "larger" in diameter, as it's not possible to make them larger than the axle rod diameter.

 

Maybe my car is different than yours, as far as I knew all years and transmissions uses the same basic set up. I could be way off but on the passenger side there's a intermediate shaft. The intermediate shaft has male splines, so the CV joint is female. In my situation when I slipped them together there was some slop, i could grab the joint and move it up and down and sided to side. When I had the OEM and aftermarket axles out of the car on the bench I could measure the opening on the inboard female splined end. Measuring the i\d with internal dial calipers I measured valley to valley on both axles and found that the aftermarket was larger in diameter. That of course made it fit loose on the intermediate shaft and looked really similar to the video you put up when rotating. Are you able to move the axle by hand at the joint?

 

Ah, that makes sense now, I thought it was male end to the intermediate shaft.
No, I did not try to move it with the hands. It very well may.
The noise definitely sounds as by a bad CV-joint (I have had 3 occasions to tell); weird it's not happening on wheel turns - and when it did before, it was way worse.
May be I should buy OEM 44305-SEP-A02.

 

That's what I did, i tried two different brands of part store aftermarket axles and they were both loose. Acurapartsforless.com had the cheapest OEM axle i could find, I've bought a few things from them and they've been great to deal with. Heeltoe has insane shafts that are a little cheaper I have no experience with them though

 

^^ from raxles. Makes sense for how my inner joint moves.

I'll try OEM for ~$200 and report the results