2002 s60 CV axle boot rotted - safe to drive?

[peterz]

Daughter is out of state with 2002 s60. noticed vibration from from end at certain speeds. boyfriend says the CV axle boot is dry rotteded and leaking grease. can it be driven safely back home for repair here? does it make sense that car would exihibit vibration from front from this, or would a bad rack and pinion be more likely to cause vibration?

thanks

[erikv11]

The vibration up front is consistent with a bad CV joint. gone bad from dirt contaminating the joint after boot failure. It should be safe to drive a few hundred miles, the CV joint would have to be in pretty bad shape to argue against it. It is very common to drive for a long time on a bad CV.

The CV joint will need to be replaced, which will amount to getting another axle.

There are loads of posts about which axle to buy. Especially for an '02 that should have many years left, I would only go with 2 options: one from a junkyard (as long as the boot is intact, the axle should be totally fine. They will go 200k easily) or a reman from raxles.com. If you go the raxles route be sure to save your OEM axle, they won't accept the Chines junk axles as cores.

Disclaimer: While I am confident stating this as advice, I don't have any direct experience with '02 model Volvos!