Chaos

My guy at discount tire called and said my right front cv boot is ripped.
Suggestions as to: grease, just boot,whole axle,all axles,preventative maintenance item?
Thanks

gota911

I had a similar situation with my 2004 996 Carrera. Lots of grease in the right rear wheel. CV boot was shot. Dealer replaced the right axle under warranty.

Macster

When the tech spotted the CV boots on my Boxster with splits (and the car was out of warranty) I initially suggested he just fit new axles with new bearings and boots. The car had over 250K miles on the original axles/CV boots and bearings.

The tech told me that because the bearings were ok that is not making any noises like they were worn out or suffering any degradation he suggested instead of replacement to instead clean and inspect and and if found ok repacking and reusing the old/original axles/bearings. He said his experience is these items are quite long lived as long as the boots stay intact.

He pointed out the new axles were rather expensive. He was right. I got a quote and they listed for around $900/each. Compared to this cost of cleaning and inspecting and re-using the old ones fitting new axles was more money.

I gave him the ok and he found the old axles/bearings to be in fine shape. They were put back in the car and I've added around another nearly 40K miles and the old original axles/bearings are just fine.

So my advice would be to have the old axles removed and at least checked for presence of any dirt/sand/grit in the bearing grease. If the grease and bearings have not been contaminated through the rip in the boot then have the bearings cleaned and inspected and if found ok reused.

You can price new axles just to get a feel for what the alternative would cost, too.

'course, this advice is conditional on what the tech advises you to do. If he makes an argument against this, and pushes for replacement instead...

Sneaky Pete

On my 996 C4 both the inner and outer boots were torn. Made quite the mess. I had a quote to get my axles "rebuilt" for approx $800 for both. I found a some slightly used axles in great shape and put those on instead. The DIY was actually pretty straight forward. I can't imagine it would be any different on an 06 car. In your case it is just one boot (?) I would just change the boot.

Chaos

$519 per shaft replacement (have fun with that line) I'm going to have new rebuild kits on both front axles.
65,000 miles.

perma

Hi, this is my first post. I've benefited many times from this forum so I thought it's about time I post something useful. Well I just replaced the front left outer CV boot this weekend on my 2008 Targa 4S with 65k miles.

Would I do it again myself?, probably not. A painful job that was harder than I expected, it took me about 10 hours even though I ran into some trouble as I'll explain here. I'll outline the steps and issues I had. The best instructions I found with pictures were on 6speedonline post called “diy cv boot replacement” Steps I used were:

1. Remove center cap of the wheel and loosen the large (32mm) axel nut. Best to do this with the wheels on the ground as you need 300+lbs of torque to loosen the nut. I used a 3 foot breaker bar (the handle from my jack) to get enough leverage to do this however I was able to do it without too much trouble.
2. Remove wheel and remove under car plastic skid plate/pan. If removing the pan for the first time like me, the only problem was the two nuts you remove on the far back of the pan. When you remove the two nuts, you need to do some pushing to get the back of the skid plate off, it was easier for me to also loosen the two nearest screws on the other back pan to get enough room to pull the front pan out.
3. Remove the 6 bolts that attach the axel to the transmission using a hex tool. The reason to remove the underside plastic pan is to access this area. I still had trouble accessing the bolts so I also removed the small chassis cross brace and the metal strap that is in the way. Once these were removed I was able to get my socket wrench in there with the right size hex to remove the bolts. Since the transmission turns as you apply torque I had my son step on the brake as I was applying the torque to remove each bolt. Also ensure you note the position of the bolts and flanges (I used white paint) so you can replace them exactly the same way. This reduces any chance of unexpected vibration etc, after reinstalling.
4. Remove the tie rod end. You will need a ball joint breaker/removal tool to do this. I hear others using a hammer or fork however the $25 you spend on a good ball joint tool is money well spent.
5. I separated the drop link ball joint from the sway bar however I’m not convinced you need to do this.
6. Remove the main ball joint on the lower control arm. You will need the ball joint tool to do this. Once the ball joint is loosened it is difficult to lower the control arm away from the wheel carrier. Be very careful when doing this as it is easy to damage the ball joint boot when doing this. The best way I found this was to place a pry bar in the space where the control arm and cross member (that joins the control arm) meet and then use the pry bar to force the control arm down. Another method is to have someone step on the control arm as you hold the wheel carrier. Forcing the control arm down will separate the control arm from the wheel carrier. When this is finally done place some wood or something soft between the control arm and wheel carrier so they do not damage each other.
7. Now remove the large axel nut you loosened in step 1. You will now need to force the axel from the wheel hub. This was difficult in my case as I think the axel had corroded and bonded to the wheel hub. I’ve heard guys using a brass hammer here however in my case the only way to do it was using a universal puller which is also a good $20 investment. The puller feet can fit behind the inside of the rotor hub which makes this possible. The axel finally broke loose from the wheel hub but took quite some force. I could then wriggle the axel free and out of the car.
8. In order to put the new boot on, you can buy flexible boots that enable you to pull the boot over the cv joint using a plastic cone. Since I did not have these, the standard way is to remove the inside CV joint (important to remove the inside CV, not the outside) by first removing the circlip and then pulling the CV joint from the axel. Once this is done the boot will slide easily to where you need it to be. My mistake was to remove the outside CV joint and not the inside CV which according to my Porsche dealership is not meant to be done. When I did this I broke the small interior circlip which was very difficult to replace. I also added new grease before fitting the boot.
9. The standard metal boot straps are difficult to fit without the proper tool. I ended up using my nail puller tool to crimp the metal strap on to the boot however this was no where near as neat as the proper tool can do. I recommend buying the tool unless you already have experience fitting metal boot straps.
10. Now putting back the axel is the reversal of these instructions.
11. Things to watch out for.
When separating the lower control arm from the wheel carrier I bent the thin heat shield behind the brake caliper. I was not aware I did this until I took the car for a test drive and heard a bad scraping noise. I first thought I had damaged the wheel bearings but discovered it was the heat shield rubbing on the rotors. Also when separating the lower control arm be careful not to damage the ball joint boot. These are very difficult to replace/fix so best be careful.