Nice writeup. My inner boots looked fine at 70k miles when I did the front bearings and outer boots 1.5 years ago, no damage whatsoever. I left the inner joint connected and just disconnected the strut and did the outer boots and cleaned/reassembled the joint while the outer end was off, used GKN boot kits for $13 apiece which looked OE to me.

Just cleaned and dressed the inner boot rubber to nourish it a bit, still looks great. It is a shortcut to not take the axle out of the hub, but its also a shortcut not to clean all old grease and disassemble the outer joint and be sure to repack with all fresh grease on a clean joint, which is what I did, and would do it again the exact same way.

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2018 Ram 2500 6.7L Cummins 68RFE
19k miles -Bright White/Black - Big Horn Sport - Crew Cab Short Bed
2013 X5 35D (CEO's) - Born on 5/17/2013 -
82k miles - Alpine White/Cinnamon Brown/Premium Pkg, Sport Activity/Premium Pkg and Sound/20" Style 214/Running Boards