Are you hearing a click sound from your front wheels? That’s the CV joints dying. They exist on front-wheel drive and AWD vehicles so that you can turn your front wheels. It’s a way — “articulation” — to get power from the engine to the wheels. You can either replace the axles (“half-shafts”), or if it’s not too late, you can re-grease and re-boot your existing axles.
If the axles are original, we suggest fixing them instead of replacing with rebuilt axles because rebuilt axles are hit-and-miss for quality and fit. Here’s my bad experience with a rebuilt $75 axle slipping out of the transmission after I replaced the OEM axle.
MVS Forums member theWestVirginian:
I received my new CV boot from IPD today and will try to install it this weekend. The boot has been torn for a few weeks now, does anyone think that the CV joint itself can still be used if a new boot is installed? I’ll replace the entire shaft assembly when I can find the exact one (any suggestions would be great), but I’m hoping a new boot can be temporary fix.
MVS Forums Moderator abscate:
If you have been driving it in really dusty and dirty conditions with a torn boot, I would clean the CV joint and regrease it. They don’t like having junk in them and they are not cheap to replace.
MVS Forums member marshallh:
In fact if you have any dirt/sand in the grease already I’d just repalce the entire axle as a precaution. You can’t remove all the contaminants and they will grind down the CV joint over time.
Axle CV Rubber Boots Tips/Tricks
