cv boot or cv joint

Pepboys? Sorry for you/....

How many miles on the car? Many places sell the entire assembly for $100 with lifetime warranty...but you sill have to pay for the installation if it fails.

I'd go somewhere other the PB. Where R U located?

G-Man

If the torn boot was discovered in the process of replacing the tire, chances are the lubrication in the CV joint is bad and the joint itself may already be on the way out. Most shops won't replace just the boot (split boots are available for DIYers) because the joint is too likely to go bad, and guess who pays then?

Replacement of the axle is usually the way to go. It is a tough DIY job without air tools because of the tight axle nut and the *$^&! taper pin on the ball joint. Prices of parts and labor vary widely. When I was lazy and farmed out the axle replacement on my daughter's '93 Accord, Honda wanted $300 parts and labor. I got the replacement part at NAPA for about $90 and took it to an independent who quoted me $68 labor (I wouldn't do it for that little, air tools or no!). Unfortunately the independent also tacked on a

4-wheel alignment for $40. An alignment is not needed when replacing the axle. Phooey. Now I do it myself.

Mike

Thanks for the advise. I have a good mechanic who told me he could replace the axle for $190.00 including labor. The thing is we bought the car 2 years ago used but we knew the owner and they gave us all the maintaince paperwork and the axles were just replaced right befire we bought the car in 2003 the car had 115,530 miles on it then and its only got 121,171 miles on it now whuy would it be bad already?

In that case, it is worth a quick peek yourself to be sure Pep Boys was giving you the straight scoop. The boots should last 5 years in a hot climate or 10 years in a cool climate.

Bad CV joint boots are very obvious. If you look under the car, where the axles are a couple inches away from the wheels, you will see a large black bellows-like rubber covering over the end of the axle. That is the boot, and the outer CV joint is inside. (The outer boots almost always go before the inner ones because they have to put up with the steering.) When they fail, they tear at the bottom of one of the corrugations with the tear extending a few inches at first and quickly extending most or all the way around the axle. Large amounts of black grease are thrown out of the tear and the grease is slung around the whole area.

$190 is a good price for parts & labor.

Mike

The price $190 is only for one is that still a good price?

'Fraid so. The part is about half that amount at the chain parts stores, and $100 is a decent price for the work involved. It isn't a huge amount of work, but it is still a bit of a chore even with a lift and the proper tools.

Since they were both apparently new only a couple years ago I wouldn't recommend doing both sides. Normally it is better to bite the bullet and do both since the other should be about ready to rip, but in your case the mystery is why this one tore at all. (It's all about age and heat - I've never heard of any being torn by road debris... although I suppose it could happen.)

BTW - have the mechanic look the brake rotor over when he is in there. I don't know about your car, but my daughter's '93 Accord is made so replacing the brake rotor takes 90% of the work to replace the axle. If that's the case and the rotor is headed for replacement soon, better to do it at the same time.

Mike

I've recently done one on a '93 Accord (and then had to do rotors on both sides, which is essentially the same job... curse me) and both on a '94 Integra. The tough parts are the same on both - unstake the dog on the axle nut and get the axle nut off (easy with air tools, a devil with hand tools) and separate the taper pin on the lower ball joint (tough to do without tearing the ball joint boot even with air tools, unless you have "the touch"). The first one I ever did was on a Dodge that was a maintenance nightmare, but the axle was easy. There was no taper pin on the ball joint, just a straight pin with a pinch clamp.

I think most of the dealer price is the part - you know they aren't using a rebuilt from the local parts store.

Mike

Hey guys i need one more thing,how much is a wheel bearing and wheel hub , i am trying to figure how much money i need.i just looked at the axles the one is completely leaking grease all over my wheel and i am afraid that it ruined my bearing or hub,and the other one is cracking so i dont know why after 2 years they are already going bad,my mechanic said they might of painted them and said they were replaced.

another thing can the leaking boots cause the bearing or hub to go bad? one person i talked to said yes and another one said no.please help i dont want to put more money out than i have to

No - definitely not. The hub is designed to deal with the very common problem of bad CV joint boots. It will have to be wiped more-or-less clean (out of general tidiness) but that is a normal part of axle replacement and is certainly included in the price.

Mike

wonder why they told me they hope my hub or bearing isnt bad because of the grease leaking from the boot

Well, I hope they aren't bad, either :-) But I'm certain they aren't. I've seen a bunch of bad CV joint boots but I've never even seen the grease get on the brake disc, much less damage the hub. Don't worry about it.

Maybe they have seen a hub that was damaged when the axle was replaced and the axle nut not torqued enough afterward. (The fit doesn't slack off when the axle fails - it has to be when it is disassembled.) The guilty mechanic may have tried to pass off the damage to the hub as being from the axle, but what happens is that the spline fit of the axle to the hub starts wallowing out if the nut isn't properly torqued... proper torque is somewhere over 100 ft-lbs; very tight. If so, that mechanic deserves coal in his stocking (why wait 'til Christmas for that?) for not owning up to his mistake. The failure shows up initially as creaking from the wheel, progressing to loss of drive as the axle starts spinning in the hub. The only fix then is to replace both parts.

Mike

"> I've recently done one on a '93 Accord (and then had to do rotors on both

The "touch" with the ball joint is using a big hammer on it. Just hit it on the front after loosening the bolt a few turns. I was leery of doing this until a mechanic at my dealer told me he did them this way. If the dealer tech does it, it should be OK for a DIY job. Since the ball joint stud is tapered, hitting the part it goes through causes it to pop out. At least it did for me. Also, I had no problem with the axle nut on my Civic using a cheater bar on a 1/2" ratchet. YMMV.

WW

alright guys wish me luck,its getting fixed today i will let you all know how it went.

I didn't see room to swing a hammer in a direction that would do any good, but I tried an air hammer with a 4 lb hammer as an anvil. No joy. Eventually I used an air chisel as a pickle fork type wedge on the area where the two pieces overlapped beside the ball joint boot and that got it. The impact wrench made the axle nut easy, especially after using the air chisel to unstake the nut :-) Usually a humungous cheater bar will get the axle nut loose okay, but the first time it's done on a Honda can bring tears to your eyes. I swear the factory must put Superglue in all their threads.

I suppose the tight nut is better than the alternatives. My older son's first car was an old Subaru that had the hub destruction I described to "rynniki". (That's how I knew so much about it!) The wheel creaked when we bought the car and it took a while to figure out what was going on. The axle nut didn't resist when we removed it, and the worn splines inside told the rest of the story. We tried greasing the splines to slow the destruction process but it didn't help much.

Mike

in my experience, that's pretty lucky, particularly for vehicles that have been anywhere near the rust belt. the only 100% reliable way to seperate the ball joint without damaging anything is to use a tool like this:

this design is like the honda factory recommended tool and /completely/ reliable. the price of the tool is small compared to the cost of sweating & swearing, then resorting to "methods" that cause damage and still may not work.

the axle failure rarely causes the bearing to go bad, but it's not uncommon for bearings to be ruined by the axle guy pounding on the axle stub - brinells the bearing races.

if you can, find someone that knows what they're doing & you should have no problems. grease leakage does /not/ effect the bearing.

jim beam wrote in news:1111069814.308af121deb027854857b7c817844313@teranews:

Wonderful link!! It's such an easy addition that I've already put it into the FAQ.

As far as I'm concerned, the price of $48 US is peanuts for something that makes a super-ugly job an easy one.

Thanks.

And just in case anyone ends up searching this in Google Groups, the tool information is: Ball Joint Separator OTC6297 about $48US

Owatonna Tool Co.

655 Eisenhower Drive Owatonna, MN 55060 800-533-6127 | 507-455-7000 International Sales: 507-455-7223 Fax: 507-455-7451