Was changing the oil in the wife's '96 850 GLT and while performing the usual undercarriage review to make sure that there wasn't anything going on I wasn't knowing about, of course I found an unexpected problem.
Turns out that the CV boot on the passenger side front wheel is torn. Completely torn out (360 degrees) on the first recess on the wheel side. Lots of grease on the underside of that side of things. Noticed a strange rubbery sound from that side over every bounce while driving to church yesterday before changing the oil in the afternoon, that explains it nicely.
From a review of older posts here, it looks like the smart thing is to get a new/rebuilt axle if the boot is torn.
Question: is this really necessary? Is it easier to just do that instead of just replacing the torn boot? How do I know if the axle really needs replacement? Is it just smarter/easier from a cost/time perspective to do the whole job than to part it out and have the CV fail sometime in the near future and have to do the whole operation again?
Thanks in advance.
Pat
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