Greets! My new-to-me C4 has 1 functional rear CV joint boot. Haven't yet pulled the axles from the car, but at least one has discernable play in the outer CV.

The P-part is ~$500 from Sunset, but there's only one in the US. It'll take 3-4 weeks from Germany for a second.

While many of the FLAPS advertise having remans available, they're all liars. NAPA, Oreilly, Autozone... bupkis.

Rock Auto will arrange a reman thru Cardone- I pay Rock, they send me the deets, I pull my shafts, send them to Cardone, Cardone pulls them apart, grinds the ways if required, reassembles with fresh grease and boots (and presumably oversize *****), sends them back within the week. $70/unit, not including shipping, 1 year warranty. Rock claim very low dissatisfaction rate. The guy at NAPA I talked to echoed that (their remans are done by Cardone too), "Yeah, that's what I'd do."

$150<<$1000; 1 week <<"3 to 4 weeks".

Pretty appealing... thoughts?

 

The problem with remains is they cut the hardening treatment off

 

That would be Obviously Bad if it's true, but according to what I've *read* (not experienced...) the heat treat is ~2-2.5mm thick. The regrind strategy is *purported* to remove only .25-.5mm, leaving fresh ways which retain the hardness of the original.

There's a guy on the 951 board loves these things, but I was hoping for direct 964 experience (good or bad, don't care which). Stock power, street driven.

 

It is progressive to depth

 

Should be plenty of decent used ones around. I've got probably 4 sets of rears sitting around in the "junk parts" warehouse.

 

You know, the idea of getting some used ones and servicing them myself hadn't occurred to me- thanks for that. You think doing that instead of getting them ground and reballed (ha!) is better?

On the one hand, these parts have to be more lightly stressed in this application than in the C2, so used parts may be less torn up.

On the other hand....

There may be several options from which to choose if I go the regrind route. In addition to the place Rock Auto use, Cardone, who seem to supply all of the chains including NAPA and AutoZone, there are numerous smaller places that do this work and claim great quality and personal service... I've emails in to 3 or 4 of them.

Pull them out and think some more I guess- I got impact tools for both the axle nut and the cheesehead bolts at the inside from McMaster-Carr for less than $30; ordered today and they'll arrive Monday.

 

my opinion?....get the new one....get second ordered...find used parts to use while you wait for the new ones to arrive. that way you are enjoying your car and once the new parts are in you have a set of spares to use for "in case"

 

I can't see any reason not to go with the cheap-o rebuilds. For $70, if it blows up after a year, then who cares? You just were going to replace it with new anyway. They always fail with plenty of noise so there is no worry of getting stranded.

The rebuild shops do know that the outboard joint is pressed and is a little different from the basic VW inboard joint, yes?

 

Just keep in mind that anything that's OEM on your car is, in essence, "second-hand". So, why replace the good one?

 

Pelican parts has OEM CV joints for $70 a peice with the boot and grease. Why mess around? Never heard of someone grinding out the joint and putting in oversize *****...I'd run away... Your local NAPA or checker is not going to have what you need.

 

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsc...a-4-parts.html

no affiliation.

 

Inners, yes. Outers.... nope.

Very very common; virtually any auto parts place halfshaft that doesn't sell for $500 will be remanufactured exactly as described.

LOL.... Turns out you're right, but their websites SAY they have what I need.


kboustani Thanks for the link! I emailed that guy stat.

 

Had mine rebuilt for around $200 for both rears I believe, and they've been fine/holding up for me since. It's been about a year or so now, and the car is daily driven quite aggressively.

 

I have a torn rubber boot on the outside joint on one side. What is the easiest fix - to replace the axles or to just replace the rubber boot -

 

If easiest is 'least amount of time screwing around with greasy parts' then replacing the halfshaft is certainly easier.

If cost is a factor, then boot only may be easier.

Searching around on this last night I found reference (but no sources...) to a product called a 'stretch over boot' which, if you can get it, sounds like the *perfect* solution for a bad outer boot. As I understand it, they're boots made from some UltraStretchy(tm) material that will allow you to pull the small shaft-end of the boot right over the entire joint (!) thereby allowing installation only by freeing the hub end of the shaft. Sounds great, really.

ETA:

1. Here's a link to a wholesaler- note that they have steering rack boots, too.

2. Here's one showing the stretchy boot install- looks pretty neat!

3. Here's a supplier in the UK that will ship worldwide.



Don Nguyen thank you for the data point. Where did you have yours done?