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I've just discovered that I have a torn boot when looking under the hood a few hours ago. I was standing on the passenger side when I looked down below the windshield on that side and some grease strewn about caught my eye. "Aw shit," I thought to myself, "And I had just got it back from my mechanic last Tuesday."

On my way to work I stopped by to mention it to my mechanic, he said this coming Tuesday would be the best time to bring it in. The only operations I've performed on my car myself is a snorkusectomy and removing and reinstalling the instrument panel. I thought long and hard about replacing this myself but I've decided to let my mechanic do it.

My question is, what should I do in the mean time? Tomorrow morning I have to go to school which is 15 miles each way. Should I wrap it in duct tape to protect the joint until Tuesday? I just want to do my part in protecting it until I have it taken car of professionally. I'll check this topic before I leave tomorrow morning.

1) It's easy to replace a CV axle. If I hustle, I can do one in 20 minutes.

2) I wouldn't worry about the joint. Just keep driving the car as it is until it starts clicking.

You think it's only been torn a couple days, but it might have been torn for 3 months. You don't know what grease has leaked out, or what other stuff has gotten in. You could take the axle out, have the joint taken apart, regreased, rebooted, and the axle reinstalled, and 6 months later have it start clicking anyway, because it was already damaged to begin with and tearing itself apart. Then you have to go through the whole thing over again.

It's worth the little bit of extra money to just let this axle destroy itself, then replace it with a whole new one.

Everytime I hear that something is easy for a car it takes me at least half a day. Man this is sounding worse and worse...

Okay, I don't have a lot of money right now. We need to start talking numbers:
-How much it might cost to have it cleaned, regreased, and rebooted by my mechanic (who is rather modest)?
-How long might it last if I do nothing?
-How long might it last if my mechanic does perform said operations?
-How much is it going to cost if I do let it go to shit and replace what needs to be at that time?
-How much would it cost to do any on the said operations myself (and what would I need)?

EDIT: I still think it would be best to just have my mechanic fix it for now.

CV axle is one hour's worth of labor (~60)
Reman CV axle itself w/ lifetime warranty is ~60 w/ core

So, total cost: $120

It's funny how we professional mehanics look at this problem and say "It's an easy fix", but the customer looks like he's going to be sick when it comes to the prospect of doing the reapir himself. I see it all the time.

Honestly, this is an easy fix. Just have the axle assembly replaced, $120 is about right for an estimate.

Hell, if you were in the Austin TX area I'd come out and do it for ya onsite...but that's part of the beauty of owning a mobile mechanic business.......

Good luck.

*sighs* Hmmmm... To be honest I'm between just leaving it alone and running the part into the ground like subyluvr2212 suggests or just taking it to my mechanic Tuesday like I told him I would which I'm gonna guess he wouldn't dare charge me more than $50. I'm still really torn over what to do...

My taurus has torn boots on every axle and has since I bought it about 6000 miles ago.

6,000 isn't a whole lot... My legacy has 252,2XX and I'd like to take it to 300,000 some day.

All thats gonna happen if you keep driving it is eventually the joint will fail and break. Its not going to damage anything (as long as you dont sit there and rev the piss out of it trying to get the car to move)

The only real reason to replace it now, IMHO, is that at this point you can still choose the time and the place to replace it. If it breaks and you rely on the car, you have to do it immediately.

the axle boots are only about 9 bucks each boot, plus the grease and band kit another 10. Is it the inner boot, or outer boot near the wheel? If it is the inner boot, it is much easier to fix. If it is the outer, then the inner has to be removed to reboot the outer one.

If the inner boot is bad, which is the most likely scenario, and the outer one is still good not dry rotted, then you can get by with one boot, one grease and band kit, and for about 20 odd bucks for parts and a little labor to change it............

Main thing when rebooting is to get the right boot. The ones on it probably have a part number stamped into it, you will need the equivalent. For instance, if you have an OEM axle in there, subaru dealer can get the right boot. But, if it is a replacement axle in there, the subaru boot might not be the right one.

If you caught this in time, there will still be some grease in the axle-it wont be bone dry if you got it in time. if it is dry, then you have to get a different axle. But if there is still a little grease in there, and you havent noticed any clicking, then you can easily reuuse that axle. first check the movement, and make sure it isn't all wobbly and make sure it is pretty stiff on movement. It shiouldnt flop all around. OEM axles are much more durable than a rebuilt one.

Good mechanics will offer to reboot this axle, the bad mechanics, and or dealers will push you to buy a new axle so they can get more money. A good mechanic knows that rebooting a OEM is better in the long run than putting in a reman axle.

Now this is the kind of information I need! It's the inner one, and there's still grease on it.

Now that I'm sure of those two pieces of information I'm looking at the procedure in my Haynes manual. There are three tools used which I do not own and it looks like a messy job. I also wonder if I'd need a real jack and/or jack stands... There still looks like a lot of room for error and a few places I could get stuck.

I still wonder if I could do it well, as this book is thorough; but I think I'll leave this one up to my mechanic, I can't see being charged more than $50 for it all. I'm dropping if off tomorrow morning, I'll let you all know how it goes.

i drove around for about a year with both the inner boots torn.

It's more of a PITA to change the boot than it is the axle, IMHO.

Now I have too look up PITA... Oh, Pain In The Ass. Okay.

So! Sit right down and I'll tell you what happened. I dropped it off Tuesday. My mechanic is like me, which I like in a lot of ways, but it also means he takes forever. I got it back around 3:00pm Wednesday.

He told me he felt it was appropriate to replace the whole axle. At first I was kind of annoyed but then he added that he recently had to replace the same axle on the driver's side for Omar, the previous driver (his father being the owner; Omar's a good friend of mine). So now I've got two relatively new front axles and take great peace of mind in that.

But what did it cost me? Well, I only work six hours a week so the operation ate up last month's paycheck which I had received soon after picking up the car. Parts: $90.82, Labor $49.00; Total: 139.82--crap that's almost exactly what I get paid a month (in fact looking back I was paid 16 cents more than that last March). Well it's all said and done, and I know my mechanic does good work so I don't feel too bad about it costing a bit more than I expected.

Soul Shinobi wrote:Now I have too look up PITA... Oh, Pain In The Ass. Okay.

So! Sit right down and I'll tell you what happened. I dropped it off Tuesday. My mechanic is like me, which I like in a lot of ways, but it also means he takes forever. I got it back around 3:00pm Wednesday.

He told me he felt it was appropriate to replace the whole axle. At first I was kind of annoyed but then he added that he recently had to replace the same axle on the driver's side for Omar, the previous driver (his father being the owner; Omar's a good friend of mine). So now I've got two relatively new front axles and take great peace of mind in that.

But what did it cost me? Well, I only work six hours a week so the operation ate up last month's paycheck which I had received soon after picking up the car. Parts: $90.82, Labor $49.00; Total: 139.82--crap that's almost exactly what I get paid a month (in fact looking back I was paid 16 cents more than that last March). Well it's all said and done, and I know my mechanic does good work so I don't feel too bad about it costing a bit more than I expected.

That's about exactly what it costs, I had a Camry that I took to a mechanic after I was unable to get either CV joints out with the ground clearance I had, and it cost me $120 in labor ontop of the cost of the axles, remans which were about $60 a pop.


All in all, you didn't get ripped. at all.

Quite good to know, thank you kind sir.

There you go. Now you don't have to worry about it