C4inLA

Can L/R rear complete half shaft axle assembly's be switched? Looking to confirm rear inner CV joint is not causing rotational grunch on slow steering wheel fully rotated turns. If I go thru the effort of temporarily switching axles and grunch moves to other side, CV joint failing confirmed or ruled out. Would also like to hear of anybody owning C4 having a rear CV joint go bad? Mileage?

JB 911

Yes you can switch them. It's quite some work though. Sounds are subjective, but typically bad cv joints make more of a clicking or popping sound.

If you don't have any torn cv boots, (or other cv story like you just replaced yours with used parts 2 months ago) I'd exhaust some other possibilities before going after the axles.

If you have torn cv boots, I'd disassemble and inspect the joints.

FeralComprehension

I sent mine to CV of Ocala for rebuilding. No issues after ~30k miles.

C4inLA

I rebuilt all last summer, probably didn't need to....

I found this great thread and want to do some of this kind of testing just don't have contraption

http://www.awdwiki.com/en/videoviscous/

Goughary

Are the axles left and right specific? And if so, how does one tell the difference when they are off the car? I have ours labeled but I'm curious because when I rebuilt the last two they seemed the same side to side...

Rocket Rob

No, they are not left/right specific. If you look at PET, it just lists one part number and says quantity 2.

Goughary

Good, that's what I thought from seeing the cv joints. They look identical side to side.

So to the op, I guess you can just switch as you see fit...and then you would have the noise transfer as you had thought.

C4inLA

Good. Keep as option for sure.

mkd944

I don't know about the C4, but I did this on my C2 and the result was not satisfactory. See this thread where I ask the same question.

It fixed the problem temporarily but the same thing eventually happened on the same axle (within 6 months). I ordered 2 new axle half-shafts from Vertex (no affiliation) and replaced both sides myself. No trying to pull off and rebuild CV joints. It was a little scary, but it turned out not to be as hard as I feared. Car has been good ever since and I have the peace of mind of knowing I have new parts.

Good luck!

C4inLA

Hi Mike,

Your description in the linked thread being on hard right turn only, okay on straight and coming from right rear side is same.... The grunch or grind in the tight turn, did it like bite in the turn and wheels rotate okay in same turn vs if in a slow circle turn grinding same sound continuous? May I ask what kind of mileage you had on replaced axles? Also, did you go rebuilt new or new new half shafts?

Matthew.

mkd944

Matthew,

In my situation, I only heard the noise in an aggressive hard right turn. Straight and left turns, I detected no noise. Slow right turn, I did not hear anything. The wheels seemed to rotate ok through the turn but it sounded horrible. My mileage was around 95K at the time. I bought 2 brand new axles and replaced both sides which is what I would have done in the first place if I had it to do over again vs doing the side-to-side axle swap.

C4inLA

Thanks for the detail. I am 44k and happens as stated in my driveway going 0-2mph kind of thing... Will get it sorted at some point.