Front CV joints?

chrisbruck · Post by **chrisbruck** » 19 Jan 2010, 10:55

Have an odd vibration while accelerating moderately while rolling. Feels like a wheel out of balance but stops when you lift off the gas. Read somewhere the CV joints can cause this. What's the life expectancy on these for a 2002 non-turbo? I've got 104k on mine. Do these have a typical mileage they will last before needing replacement?

stevick · Post by **stevick** » 19 Jan 2010, 18:00

My 2000 was doing something similar. I posted it and got responses that it was the CV joint. Replacing the axle as an assembly is much easier and cheaper than replacing the individual CV joint. I bought mine (rebuilt) at a local NAPA auto parts and it was ~$80 after the core charge. There is a great how-to post on this site that helped make the job fairly easy (as always though, you need the right tools). That was definitely the problem, and the ride is great now.

I can't say what the life is on these. My car had ~285k and a split boot. A split boot allows foreign matter into the CV joint and almost invariably causes it to fail. If your boot is split, you can be pretty sure that is the problem.

nifton · Post by **nifton** » 28 Jan 2010, 04:26

I have a similar issue on my 460, front right wheel area makes a 'droning' sound when in 4th or 5th gear and revs are low varying up to 3kish, letting off the gas compounds the noise, it's made worse when cornering to the right, completely abates when turning to the left. I can accelorate out of the noise 'band' I have, which is from high 40s to around 80mph, but only in the gears mentioned. I think the noise is still there, it just resonates with the rest of the car so I can't hear it as well.

At first the fact it didn't do it in 3rd was a red herring, thought it could be tranny fluid. I figured that when in 3rd at 40+ there would be no slack in the system and the engine would be pulling well at around 3k revs in thirds.

I've seen similar issues posted and fixes mentioned around re-greasing the joints if the rubber boot is still sound.

Do you have a link for the how-to guide Stevick? i can't find it. I know this forum isn't for my car, but i figured the general mechanics of these joints would be universal.

Post by **RobTheModd** » 28 Jan 2010, 05:13

stevick wrote:My 2000 was doing something similar. I posted it and got responses that it was the CV joint. Replacing the axle as an assembly is much easier and cheaper than replacing the individual CV joint. I bought mine (rebuilt) at a local NAPA auto parts and it was ~$80 after the core charge. There is a great how-to post on this site that helped make the job fairly easy (as always though, you need the right tools). That was definitely the problem, and the ride is great now.

I can't say what the life is on these. My car had ~285k and a split boot. A split boot allows foreign matter into the CV joint and almost invariably causes it to fail. If your boot is split, you can be pretty sure that is the problem.

I bought my aftermarket axle Assembly from discount auto for about 60$ + tax. and it has gone a good 20k miles so far.
Took about an hour to install it in my driveway.
pretty straight forwards. but check the repair database for a how to.

nifton · Post by **nifton** » 28 Jan 2010, 07:00

I checked, my boot is intact, and actually looks a little newer than most of the other rubbers in contact with the outside world (same with the left side) I wonder if they were done a while back, and the right side wasn't seated properly.

Post by **RobTheModd** » 28 Jan 2010, 10:29

to answer the original question... my driver side has 245k miles on it...

btw. try your motor mounts. They have alot to do with vibration. I just replaced my upper mount and it decreased ALOT of vibration.