How to Check If You Have Worn CV Boots
- 1). Drive your vehicle at low speeds in an area where you can make several tight right and left-hand turns, such as a parking lot. Roll down the front windows and listen for any clicking, popping or pounding sounds coming the front of the vehicle under the chassis. If you hear such noises, stop the vehicle and put it in reverse.
- 2). Turn the steering wheel hard over to one side and keep it there. Accelerate the vehicle slowly, driving backward in a tight circle. If the clicking, popping or pounding gets louder, it confirms a shaft or CV joint problem. The noises indicate dry and wearing CV joints. From a standing start, accelerate the vehicle and feel for a shudder or listen for any clunk. A clunk while accelerating and slowing down could point to a dry and worn CV joint.
- 3). Loosen the lug nuts on both front wheels with a tire iron, but leave the wheels attached. Raise the front of the vehicle with a floor jack and set two jack stands under the frame. Finish unscrewing the lug nuts with the tire iron and pull the wheels free.
- 4). Slide under the vehicle and shine a shop light on the inner and outer CV boots -- they look like rubber accordions. Check each boot very carefully for spits, tears, bloating, cracks or a disconnection at the retaining ring clamps.
- 5). Look on the underside of the chassis parts and on the inner portion of each wheel rim for signs of slung grease. Grease slung at high velocity, due to a tear in the boot, will look like dark gray or black spiderweb-like streaks across the frame. Feel the streaks with your fingers to confirm that grease is present.
- 6). Gently palpate the rubber boots with your fingers, pressing them inward toward the joint. A boot that collapses easily against bare metal, indicates a lack of grease inside the boot. If the boot feels unusually brittle, it means the rubber structure of the boot has lost its elasticity and should be replaced. Check the other boots on the front axle in the same manner.
- 7). Use a screwdriver or socket to remove the retaining ring clamp on a suspect CV boot. Refer to your repair manual to make sure this procedure can be performed. Pull the boot back an inch or so and probe your finger inside to pick up a sample of grease. Grease that has a gritty or crusty feel to it, indicates a break in the boot seal, which has allowed dirt and contaminates to enter the joint.
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