two days ago when i was doing a brake job on my accord i noticed that the cv boot was split and all of the gease was lost. This happened very recently like in last 2 weeks. I have not heard any signs of the cvjoint going such as clicking. I have an appointment thursday to get it repaired. my question is how much damage am i doing driving my car to work and such, which is only about 7mins away. Should i stop driving completely or just limit my use?

 

You SHOULD be in luck. If after throughly cleaning the joint, your tech doesn't notice any wear or scoring, then repacking the joint and installing a new boot is a viable repair.
To do it correctly, the axle assembly must be removed, the joint cleaned and inspected and a new one piece boot installed.
There are boot kits out there that can be installed w/out disassembling the axle, but unless the joint is properly cleaned and repacked, it won't last long (and I consider it a Bandaid repair).
The other option will be to buy a remanufactured axle assembly.
Talk over your options with your tech to determine the best course for your repair. He should give you the price for either avenue you choose.

P

 

thanks for your replay. i was told that the axle assembly would be replaced rather than just the boot. This way would be the cheapest route around $300 he said. again with me driving the car back and forth to work for the last 2 days and everyday this week until thursday is this going to cause more problems? my best guess is that boot split about a week ago whats my chances of ruining the cvjoint?

 

You can do it yourself for $60-$80 and an hour or so of your time.

 

Industry trends being what they are, your tech will most likely steer you to replacing the axle rather than repair it. He'll do this by offering a warranty (comes with the reman axle assembly) for the replacement rather than the repair for which he won't offer one.
In truth, unless you could guarantee that no dirt ever got into the opened joint, there's no saying when (or if) the repaired joint would need attention again. That being said, it makes better sense to go for the warranteed replacement (even more so if you plan to have your ride for some time.
Hopes this Helps

P

 

Buying an axle would be easier and doing it yourself would save the cash. Buying the complete axle is the easy way out rather than taking all the extra time and not many people know how to rebuild and axle with the boot. But the Boot is cheap and axle is not.

 

yo greddy if you can remove the axle you can change the boot for around 10 dollars ....
if axle is not noisy you do not need to replace axle ,,the thing is that if
you take car to shop it will cost you more to replace just the boot than if you replace the whole axle yourself ,,,do not i repeat do not have shop replace axle telling you that it is the cheapest route to replace axle is bull crap a shop normally charges around 100 to 150 to replace axle boot some have deals for around 89 dollars ,,,,, but like i said if you do the work yourself it will cost you about 10 dollars if you want to tackle it let me know i will guide you through it

 

It it common that the dealer goes for the axle first everytime? I have a 95 LX with what I thought was worn wheel bearings. After a diagnostic visit to the dealer, he said the loud howling noise was something inside the tranny and I needed a new axle, cv boots and basically the whole nine. Needless to say I didn't go back. He was talking around $900-$1K for both sides (axles and boots) and another $200-$300 for the tranny thing. What would be an approx realistic price for this? Are the bearings and boots really that easy to change myself (driveway job, common tools)? Any input would be helpful.

 

I have a '95 LX too. I replaced my bearing and CV axle by myself and it was pretty easy. The only special tool I needed was a claw puller to get the lower ball joint separated from the hub knuckle. Other than that, I'd recommend a good set of 1/2" driven 6-point metric sockets.

The bearing cost me $50, and the CV Axle $100 (I think) from AutoZone.