Ravencrave

Hello, I have my 2001 ES300 @ almost 241,000 miles now. For the past month or so, I've been hearing a noise coming from under my driver side tire. Sounds a lot like a sprinkler and the faster I go, the faster the sprinkler noise goes.
Just last week I noticed a glob of grease where I park my car at work. I thought nothing of it until today when I decided to look under my hood to try and figure out the sprinkler noise. I found that the rubber boot on the CV axle on the inside is all covered with grease and has splatters all around.
Could the noise have actually been the failing CV joint or possibly a hub bearing?
Tomorrow I'm going to get under the car to get a better look and get photos. I appreciate any thoughts on this.

LeX2K

It could be the boot smacking up against the various suspension bits, in fact that's probably what it is. When you go to replace the axle you can check the wheel bearing at the same time. A good way to test for a bad wheel bearing is to spin the wheel/hub while holding onto the coil spring. If the bearing is bad you'll feel a vibration, it's even better if you do this with the wheels off the ground and the engine running car in gear.

It's really effective if you compare sides, if one side is bad the vibration difference will be really obvious.

Ravencrave

I jacked the front end up, put the car in gear, I don't hear any grinding noise other than the brake bad hitting against loose rotors. I cleaned up the grease a bit and still find no rips or tears. By the looks of where the grease is spread out and splattered all over, no doubt its coming from the boot and most likely where the large boot clamp is. Would it better to replace the whole CV axle or just the boot? Also is it true that if you replace 1 side, the other should be done as well?

01LEXPL

iTrader: (10)

Just get an axle. It's a whole 50-60$ from RockAuto.