bmw x5 e53 2005 CV boot vs Axle replacement cost vs difficulty
 

Hi all, I have a 2005 X5 E53 4.4i and my front CV outer boots are torn. I have the option of replacing the full axles with both cv joints or just do a CV boot replacement. I see that BMW CV axles are expensive but have heard issues with aftermarket ones (GKN etc). The genuine BMW CV boot replacement kits are obviously much less expensive and you can pick up pullers for hub and cv at decent prices. However, I have read that the difficulty of CV boot replacement is a lot harder than replacing the whole axle. Also, there seem to be posts on different procedures for CV boot replacement where they vary which items need to be unbolted. The other thing is putting the CV joint back on and fiddling with the circlip.

Just wanted to check on those who have done this job if they had the same dilemma on which path they chose.

regards

Pricing probably varies quite a bit here in the States but when I had torn outer CV boots that ended up damaging the CV joints, the dealer wanted around $450 for the joints and around $150 for the boot kit. (just the parts) I ended up going with Chinese aftermarket complete axle assemblies for $100 each and have been on my X5 for over 7 years at this point with no issues at all. Even the boots are still in perfect shape.

So for a truck that is 15 years old, I didn't see a need for factory axles and saved probably $1500-$2000 after everything was installed. (nearly half the value of this truck over here)

I was going to re-boot, but others on here talked me into just putting on a cheap axle from Advance AP. Google for coupons, order online, then pick up in store. It's only been on for a few months, but so far, so good.

AM.

I changed the boot - the cost of the complete axles is prohibitive over here (compared to just the boot) and the labour to change the entire axle is way more - it's a no brainer (for me).

I have 2-3 torn boots and since no secondary symptoms and one of the torn boots is on one of the replacement CV axles I'm going to get boots


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I have replaced the boots only. One extra factor to consider is that I'm pretty sure replacing the whole axle is a bigger job than the boots, if you don't count the part of replacing the boots on the axle when it is out.

When you do the boots only, you leave the very outer part of the axle in the hub assembly. And that part can be a big deal for some people.

For example, when I replaced mine, I did not touch the axle nut or the brakes at all. Others on here have posted nightmare stories about getting the outer end of the axle out, after removing the axle nut.

There's a thread on here, about a thousand pages long, called something like "CV boot replacement in 30 minutes". That explains the basic method. I have a post in there somewhere where I was confused by the confusing instructions, and was pointed to a certain post in there that cleared things up.

Glad to hear others are getting good performance from those aftermarket axles.

I had to have my mechanic do it. It was cheaper to replace with GKN replacement axles than to have him pull and reboot. Basically, the pulling and re-install is the same but you don’t have the labor for the rebuild. It really depends on your labor rates in your area. If I was doing it myself, I’d reboot since I have the time.

I put some Amazon CV on wife's car and they have 40,000 on or so. One boot tore I suspect I damaged installing because it was a bitch to get in because the retaining clip was defective.

Her car is developing a bit of an under load wiggle might be from operator error (problem exists between seat and steering wheel). I let the torn boot go too long. Not unhappy about the $110 price avg. I would do it again.

About the non axle nut boot fix : it's easier to remove that nut than the FOUR ball joints holding the knukle.

I will be doing some boot replacements soon. I'll take pictures of course.

The only vehicle I've re-booted was my son's (ill-fated) Subaru. I did it because it is well-known that Subarus don't like AM axles, and Subie axles are, of course, more expensive.

If your boot fails, then the grease left inside is compromised to some extent from exposure to dirt/dust/moisture, etc. To do the job right entails cleaning out most/all the old grease and replacing it with fresh, clean. That also makes it a fairly time-consuming job. It's important to use the right grease depending on the CV joint style. Rzeppa joints typically have 6 large balls and require a moly-infused high pressure grease. Tripod joints (typically used on the inner joints) require a much thinner grease - usually a polyurea grease. You can buy the specific greases from companies like GKN and some car manufacturers (Honda sells it). I ended up going to a John Deere implement dealer to find the polyurea grease in quantity at a reasonable price.

Having gone through all that hassle on the Subie, I was easily swayed to go the $65 Chinese Advance AP axle route. I had little trouble with the axle swap, though you need a serious impact gun to remove the axle nut. My old OEM axle wasn't making any noises, so I may re-boot it some rainy day and have it on the shelf for the day my Adv AP axle fails. More likely, it'll sit there untouched and I'll buy another $65 axle when the time comes!

AM.

I bought the GKN boot kits (around $15 each, I'll guess). GKN is the OES for these parts. The kits come with a new boot, 2x 80g packets of grease (BTW, the spec from the Bentley is for 80g per joint, so the kits come with 2x as much grease as needed), c-clips (2 types, you need one), an axle nut, and the hose clamps. Same grease in the inner vs. outer boot kits.

Part numbers for the kits (2001 3.0i front axles, inner and outer): 31607507402, 31607565315. GKN-304206 is for one of the two.

So in that case, I figured GKN knew what grease was required and I just used what they supplied. :dunno:

I know from my Honda, they originally specified two very different types of grease for inner vs. outer, but later released a new single grease that supersedes both of them. So maybe GKN has done this? :dunno: It makes sense that they would be different - very different joint styles, one is near the brakes (hot) and flexes a lot (steering), the other is in-board near the transaxle or differential with pretty steady temperature and much less motion.

At the low price involved, I'm not worried about the type of grease.

I AM worried about avoiding an impossible step in the process, though. That's why I prefer the boots-only method.

Here's that 30-minute (not including reading time) thread, at my post, which is followed by some good discussion on options.

https://xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/...ml#post1135021

I'm not worried about getting the axle nut off, it's getting the axle end out of the hub without using a sledge hammer or the jaws of life. Plenty of stories on here about problems with that. Surely successful most of the time, like most things. But also, I hardly ever use a hammer on my suspension and bearings; I also seem to get a lot more mileage out of suspension components than most; correlated?

Taking a possibly longer path to avoid the land mines.

See this great thread, which contains this example along with a lot of other good info:

quote: "Got into my CV boot replacement project today. Got the axle nut off and can't get the splined shaft out of the hub. No amount of beating will budge it." :yikes: And the only follow-up was a full retreat and re-assembly.

https://xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/...ml#post1150519

And yeah, if you're paying someone else to do this, you may not even have the option to have boots only replaced.

Interesting about the GKN grease. Out of curiousity, I went to the GKN website and they still show two distinct greases. I've attached the relevant page from their brochure. I wonder if the two grease packets just LOOKED the same, but were actually two different greases? The grease for the outer should have a grayish tint from the moly additive, while the inner grease shouldn't.

AM.

Attachment 76356

I've had to remove half a dozen splines from hubs and we are in the Midwest but they've not been rusty. I've had a really hard time trying to get a spline back in the hub and almost bought the special axle pulling tool that threads into the axle spline and pulls it through effortlessly.

The trick that resolved the stuck axle was to remove the bolts holding the knuckle to the shock tower so it could wiggle and match the angle of the spline perfectly.

Did that very operation just last night when I replaced a front wheel bearing.

Just one bolt, Andrew. The rear control arm at the chassis end. That's it. ;)

OK, for full disclosure, add in the five wheel studs too, removing the wheel. :bustingup

With practice and a hoist, the boot-only swap, done by pulling the axle from the outer joint (with the joint still in the hub) can easily be completed in 30-minutes. I did mine on the garage floor with axle stands and jacks, and was 2 hours from ignition off to ignition on, including the clean up and two beers (after we were done).

bmw x5 e53 2005 CV boot vs Axle replacement cost vs difficulty
 

Wow I thought you had to pull the rotor with the hub end out of the way. I will definitely be checking this method out. Its a "non issue" for me to pull the CV spline out especially since I just had it out 18 hours ago and I sprayed lube on before replacing. I usually remove the shock tower bolts to get the CV out I'll have to try the rear control arm method.

This picture from dville shows the method...

http://i356.photobucket.com/albums/o...1228-00069.jpg

From page 4 of "the thread"...

https://xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/...minutes-4.html

*edit* I should add, I didn't lever the joint apart - I used a soft metal drift to "tap" the CV joint inner, on the shoulder right where the axle seats, to "pop" the circlip free.. axle just slid out... I had a helper putting a pulling tension on the hub and I used the vice grips to secure the axle, so we didn't pull the inner CV apart.

Interesting PDF - thanks.

In the GKN boot kits, they were in 80g pouch/packet things. And they were as identical as I could tell, from checking for that while I had them. I can't remember if the pouches had part numbers on them, but if they did, I would have checked them against eachother. Also, I would have noticed if the grease was significantly different (e.g., as I have noticed for the in- vs. out-board Honda grease).

40 pages took me a while. Some say that the factory axles and inner front CV’s are lifetime of the vehicle. I can’t remember if anyone has had one long enough to post a poor inner CV. I am up to 220,000 km and was told the inner boots are still good.

Many have had issues with getting the axle and circlip out of the outer CV for the short job. I remember seeing a you tube video where he had to destroy the old CV to find out why the circlip wasn’t moving. The point hinted was that the circlip slot did not have a good taper going into the slot which helps the compression of the circlip when pulling the shaft out. So, maybe some manufacturers dont provide a good enough taper. I am not sure what force would be required to shear the clip.

Anyway, apparently my 2005 X5 E53 4.4i sports model has two types of outer front CV’s boot kits based on the axle shape where the CV/boot goes on. Is there anyway I can tell first without jacking the car up and inspecting? I think I read in one of the pages about the date of car or shaft size but cant remember.

From memory the difference is axle diameter - 27mm vs 29mm and again from memory, the 27mm axles where only on early production cars (1999-2000ish).

Pretty sure that your LCI car will have 29mm axles. :dunno:

I think I've seen variation is the tapered section of the axle where the boots small end fits too - again, not sure. Depending on who supplies the boot, you may not get much choice. I got a boot from a local supplier, who was unable to offer any choice (one boot fits all) and it did indeed fit my axle well. :rolleyes:

I recall buying an inexpensive rotary hammer from Harbor Freight, with a pointy bit, and that drove the splined axle from the hub forthwith.

Thanks, I’ll check the specs on the boots if they are listed. Bmw are quoting $190 AUD per kit here so pelican parts, ecs, fcp, etc. and shipping cost.

Pricing does not make a lot of sense to me.
Here's one of the boot kits for my car for $10 from FCP, by GKN, which is the OE supplier for these.
https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/bmw...em-31607507402

EDIT - and BTW, looking at a few of those GKN boot kit pictures online now, I see they all seem to show a single packet of grease. I bought my 4x kits from RM European (and as mentioned previously in this thread, all came with 2x 80g packets of grease, while the spec for each joint is for 80g total), and I wonder if maybe RM European threw in extra grease packets just because they're awesome??? It also makes me wonder again about the inner vs. outer grease types that Attacking Mid raised.

And the MSRP for the BMW logo on that part brings the price up to $50-$60.

???

Too bad you read all 40 pages. There's some great info in that thread, but the reading time kind of kills the efficiency if you can't quickly get to the good stuff.

I completely agree on your comment regarding the c-ring (it has a circular cross section, not rectangular) in the rectangular groove. There is no taper on the groove edge. As I have found on other cars, this requires a little finesse. Specifically, the method is to apply pressure by levering the splined shaft out using a small pry bar or a big screw driver. That will hold the ring with some pressure against the side of the rectangular channel. Then maintain that pressure while rotating the axle shaft.

You will need to have both front wheels jacked to allow the axle to rotate while a helper rotates the opposite wheel. By rotating and applying pressure at the same time, you allow some movement and encourage the c-ring to align itself where the curved portion of the ring surface then provides the bevel to compress the ring and allow it to escape the rectangular channel.

Briefly, the trick is to apply separation pressure with a lever, while rotating the wheel to allow alignment. Brute force may get you in trouble. Or not. ;-)

For me, it was my outer boot that failed, but having all 4 replacement boots (2 inner, 2 outer) on the shelf and ready to go, I replaced the inner one as well even though it looked fine. At least here, the parts cost is so low that it is not a factor vs. the effort to separate the axle and read the thousand-page thread. Getting access to one boot means the other one can easily be removed as well by sliding it along the length of the shaft. After replacing the grease and boot in the inner joint, I carefully cleaned the inner boot and it did look near perfect. However, with the flaky records I have from the PO, I really can't tell how old it was.

Guys, what brand and model rotary hammer do you have? thanks I was thinking of just a breakerbar and pipe.

I plan on using a big vice grip and pry bar. (or I engineered a special clamp to grab an axle for this purpose that is basically a steel plate with a hole the diameter of the axle, cut in half and threaded to bolt back together. I designed to use for changing boot or axle. It can be very hard to find a place to push on those guys.


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