I have a friend who drove around for going on a year now with very noisy CV joints. One of the joints finally got so bad that he can barely move the car.

He took it into a shop and they want to replace both driveshafts (good) but they also claim that driving around for that long caused the clutch to completely wear out - so his $500 CV replacement is now a $1500+ repair.

To me it smells like a shop trying to wring extra money out of someone who doesn't know squat about cars, but I'd like to get some more opinions on this before passing my opinion on to the guy. Last thing he needs right now is false hope.

Keep in mind this is a 96/97 Civic HX Coupe, 250K+, pretty much everything is still factory. He may have just worn the clutch out over the course of normal events, with the CV joints going too as part of normal wear and tear, and both are in need of replacement with no real connection between the two dying at roughly the same time. But he's kicking himself because the shop told him the clutch wore out because of the CV joints - which just doesn't make any sense to me.

 

i doubt driving like that long will wreck your tranny. why would it? the tranny will operate wheather or not the cv axle is in it...as long as the seals are holding in the tranny fluid.

plus just do the axles yourself. they are easy. the only hard part is popping the ball joints off the lower control arm then its just a straight cruise from there. hell, if i lived close i'd probably do it for 20 bucks.

***a clutch job is not that hard either.

 

The cv joint won't cause the clutch to go out. and there is no barely moving the car because of the cv joints. When a cv joint is completely done for, then your car won't move at all. So if the car "barely moves" right now, its because the clutch is probably worn out. The axles have to be popped to do a clutch anyways, so labor shouldn't be $1500. Is that parts and labor? Axles and a cheap clutch is only gonna set you back like $400, if that. labor shouldn't be $1100.

 

No sir.