polishpunk68

My car has 82k miles on it and I just had to replace one CV boot (outer) recently (it was ripped) and I noticed the other outer boot is cracking too..

Is this normal on an 82k car?? I bought my car when it had 80k so if this is really freaky I really hope the miles on my car weren't rolled back before I got it

thanks

Ceasars Chariot

iTrader: (16)

doesnt sound to freaky to me !! ran into the same trouble myself ..

j_richard73

As Ceasars Chariot said, your problem is not uncommon. It's not so much about mileage as it is about the age of the rubber boot. They just break down over time. On my 95, I discovered about 6 months ago that both boots were completely ripped open. The real thing to determine is if the CV joint itself is still good. Did you replace the CV boot yourself? Was the drive shaft disassmbled and a new boot installed, or was a new split boot used that simply slides over the joint (not the best solution long term)? When a boot is ripped and you don't know how long it stayed that way, 2 things happen - the grease from the CV joint is thrown out and grit and grime from the road is thrown in. The lack of good lubrication + the debris causes the joint to fail. When turning at low speeds you'll hear a pop,pop,pop in rapid succession. That's usually a tell tale sign of a failing CV joint.

On my Max I could already hear the failing CV joint on the drivers side and since the passenger side boot was ripped open, I'm sure for quite some time too, I went ahead and had both CV joints rebuilt. It cost me $210 for each side, but this work has to be done sooner or later. Don't be surprised if they suggest to replace the axle and joint all together as one piece, it's actully cheaper than them having to rebuild just the joint at the shop.

So don't worry. You didn't get a bad Maxima with a rolled back odometer. Drive it until you hear problems with the joints and them have them rebuilt.

polishpunk68

Yes, I changed the boot myself, I got the real boot replacement, not the split kind... so I had to take apart the outer joint and got a chance to take a look at it. There was no dirt or anything that wansn't supposed to be there inside and overall the joint looked perfectly fine, just some of the grease splattered out, not too much though as there was still a lot of it inside the boot (nothing leaked out of the joint itself it seems)
I also know that it couldn't have been ripped for too long, no more than a few days.

All in all, it cost me $15 to fix the boot and a good amount of hours working at it, but at least the next time I have to do it, it won't take so long.

95seMax

iTrader: (11)

when my boot cracked and i had greese allover my rim , they told me to just replace the whole axel and get yr warranty with it, bc , replacing just the boot would run about the same price to change axel and is not guaranteed

i just replaced both my front axels with boots within 3 weeks
price was 180 each side
for refurbished axels