Hi guys,

Last Saturday i was replacing my car’s front rotor breaks when I noticed a whole mess of grease behind the passenger side wheel. I saw that the boot was completely torn off (see picture) and now I need to get it replaced. I searched the forums for instructions on replacing it but I can’t find anything useful.



My local Pepboys is charging $70 for a brand new Duralast CV Joint while Advanced is charging $20 for just the boot. Should I replace the entire CV joint or just replace the boot? What sort of prices can I expect for labor in these shops?

Im also pretty mechanically able, I can work on my own car so the question is, could I do this job in my home with common tools if I just buy the boot? If so are there instructions online I could follow?

 

Pretty much any axle Toyota axle replacement video will give you the jist of it this is the first one that popped up on YT I would replace the axle unless you have the tools and service manual on replacing axle boots.

 

Greetings:

Just two weeks ago I had a similar problem on my 2003 ES300. For me it was the passenger side inner boot that had a tear in it and was losing grease. I considered removing the axle and changing the boot, but my car is approaching 150K miles so I bought a new whole axle assembly at O'Reillys. My car has always lived in warm weather so I didn't have any rust problems that would require a slide hammer to get the center bearing loose, which O'Reillys would have loaned to me. I did the job with the front end on jack stands and the only difficulty for me was the snap ring that holds the center bearing in took a little while for me to get it in place. Also, remember that when you pull the axle out of the transmission you will lose transmission fluid. I caught it in a pan and measured it so I could replace the correct amount. The car runs great and I'm happy that I did the whole axle instead of just replacing the boot. By the way, replacing the boot is just as much work. I'm reasonably handy but also 76 years old and I managed the job okay.

Good luck,

Vic
Fort Myers, Florida

 

If you had a small tear, I'd say replace the boot. It might even be doable without removing the whole shaft out of the carrier bearing and transmission.

Since your boot is well torn and it may have been driven like that for a while, contaminants may have got in and done some damage to the bearing surfaces. Might be safer to replace the whole axle.

 

Thanks for the responses! I ended up buying a whole new assembly and took it to a mechanic to change the whole joint. I wanted to do the job myself but I was worried that I would get stuck along the way. Still, i appreciate the help. Maybe next time I’ll tackle changing the joint. I kept the old one since it didn’t feel like it was bad, just boot replacement in case there’s an emergency!