CV REPLACEMENT PRICING
 

The CV Boots are the worst thing flat out with the X5 design, you think they would come up with a more durable synthetic boot, especially given the importance of the part. its not some little hose you can get away with. your bearings go your looking at $1000+ repair job...

Heres the breakdown for what it should cost for CV BOOT repair.

90% of the time its only the outer boot that needs replacing the inner boots and the rear boots rarely tear or break, that being said if your front inner boots are still good and your replacing the outer ones, you might as well have them replace the inner boots it only takes a few extra minutes no need to remove the axle from the gear box and they just top it off with grease and slide the new boot on. You will save yourself a potentially far greater expense later on. If your inner boot is ripped then have them pull that sucker and wash out the entire bearing and shaft to remove any dirt or debris.

Labor for outer replacement with inner replacement no damage boot, should be about
2.5 to 3 hours, my shop in Vegas charges $95/hour
Boot Kit/per boot costs $30-$50 truth is I can find it online for $15 but shops are running a business and I doubt they will let you bring your own parts, they refer to it as
"Bringing your own meat to a Steakhouse"
They make some money on the parts and labor so just ask them to give you a little discount on the part price if they can. or knock some time off the labor work.
Ideally you should be paying around $335 per axle for boot replacement
Hope this helps.

Yup, they replaced all 8 joint covers. They brought their labor down from 9 hours to 7 hours. Thats how they justified the lower price. It is a pretty labor intensive process and with a shop rate of $90 an hour it is a bit pricey.

Thank you very much for the write up! Sounds like you are very familiar with this particular topic. Question I have is if the dealer had the car in the last couple of months and saw all of the grease built up on the wheel wells and inner part of the wheel wouldn't this be a dead give-away? I feel really stupid now thinking that every time I got my X5 back that the idiots in the detail shop kept using some product to make the wheels and tires shine like new and it was essentially capturing all the road gunk and grime when all along it was the CV Joints!!! I even ruined a wheel cleaner in the process trying to get all of the grease off of the inside of the wheels...I feel like the idiot not knowing the cause! I am just really disappointed that I cannot trust the dealer to notice these things!

Anyway, thanks for the info! I did not see your post until today and got the car back already last night. I know for a fact they did not replace the inner covers but wish I would have gotten to them to have them do it. Also the car is a CPO car up to 100K miles so thankfully this ended up being covered 100% - They ended up taking care of the brakes as well...on the house which is nice and all but a little piece of mind that they did the right thing is priceless!!!

my indy warned me to always get the $$$ BMW boots as the after market ones are too thin and wear out sooner

What r the actual "symptoms" of a CV boot tear? Is it noticeable when it's just the outer boot, in terms of any noise, vibration, steering, etc? Or do folks not notice anything for a while?

alway look for fluid drops under your car when you back out of the driveway or garage - always ask if the boots show any leaks when getting an oil change or service - DON'T ASSUME they will check without you asking!

had the car looked at for some odd thing, then 1 day later they discovered the leaking boots during an oil change. just lucky enough to find it right after they failed. my indy said you could possibly get away with leaking boots for 1-2 weeks, but after that we're talking replacement of axles also.

BMW BRAND BOOTS MYTH!!!
 

X5Flyboy, I read your comment on your mechanic recommending bmw boots. In my opinion based on having the dealer parts installed and aftermarket brand boots. It DOES NOT MATTER, they are both horrible.
My BMW boots lasted a whole 30K miles before they started tearing and they cost around the same believe it or not as the aftermarket maybe slightly pricier but I bought them from bmw dealer so I know they were OE the boots are just flat out garbage and if you add extreme weather to that like living in LAS VEGAS in the summer then your out of luck. they just dry out no matter what brand.

The material shoudl be completely redesigned to last 100K but I can't imagine how thick of a boot that would require unless they use a new more durable material like kevlar or something exotic, I would gladly pay$60 or $70 for each out boot if I knew they would last 100K miles.

Just got both of my front cv boots changed at my local indie. $200 for parts and labor. :thumbup:

It might be wise to just buy a fresh axle, brand new cv joints and boots, you might save yourself some money, however not sure how much labor would cost for that.

So we should check every 30k miles to be safe then?