bad experience with CVJ axles

[audiness]

So i replaced both front CV shafts on my 4th Gen. The passenger side was done 8/2016, and the Driver side was done shortly after. I just noticed grease spraying inside the wheel well, and sure enough the passenger side outer boot is torn and leaking. I then inspected the other boots, and all the boots on both "new" axles are cracking.

It looks like the rubber material used by CVJ on my axles is of very-sub par quality. What complete peices of garbage, and a major waste of money. These have less than 30k miles on them in 2 years. Not driven off-road either.
Thankfully, i saved my OEM axles (which were completely fine other than torn boots). I have purchased the OEM Toyota re-booting kit, and I am working on rebuilding both original OEM axles.

I just thought I would share this for anyone planning to drop more than $400 on a set of CVJs.. save yourself the trouble and buy OEM or just buy the reboot kits (OEM of course)

 

[audiness]

who doesn't love pictures.

 

[07V8]

You could have ordered them with OEM boots.

OEMEverythingIsLife

I got 200k, 30% of which was lifted on OEM boots. Rebooted the joint with the Toyota kit and plan to get another 200k. Joint was perfect.

 

[duffdog]

You could have ordered them with OEM boots.

OEMEverythingIsLife

I got 200k, 30% of which was lifted on OEM boots. Rebooted the joint with the Toyota kit and plan to get another 200k. Joint was perfect.

If you are a company that makes supposedly "premium" axles that cost 4x as much as everywhere else, why even offer chinese junk parts?

 

[Berty_K]

You could have ordered them with OEM boots.

OEMEverythingIsLife

I got 200k, 30% of which was lifted on OEM boots. Rebooted the joint with the Toyota kit and plan to get another 200k. Joint was perfect.

There's a trend here....... oem lca, oem boots

 

[07V8]

If you are a company that makes supposedly "premium" axles that cost 4x as much as everywhere else, why even offer chinese junk parts?

IIRC it’s a $100 price difference for a pair of axles.

 

[audiness]

I've learned my lesson too many times.

OEM or nothing for me from now on. anda:

 

[USMCEngineer]

Axles

I've had mine for at least 30k and offroad frequently. I purchased the ones with the red outer boots that are supposed to work better for lifted vehicles. Is your vehicle lifted? Those boots do look pretty bad for 30k. Guess either get the upgraded boots or go OEM. CVJ uses OEM axles for the rebuilds, so if you get an OEM boot, should be pretty close to the same thing.

 

[jminz]

So i replaced both front CV shafts on my 4th Gen. The passenger side was done 8/2016, and the Driver side was done shortly after. I just noticed grease spraying inside the wheel well, and sure enough the passenger side outer boot is torn and leaking. I then inspected the other boots, and all the boots on both "new" axles are cracking.

It looks like the rubber material used by CVJ on my axles is of very-sub par quality. What complete peices of garbage, and a major waste of money. These have less than 30k miles on them in 2 years. Not driven off-road either.
Thankfully, i saved my OEM axles (which were completely fine other than torn boots). I have purchased the OEM Toyota re-booting kit, and I am working on rebuilding both original OEM axles.

I just thought I would share this for anyone planning to drop more than $400 on a set of CVJs.. save yourself the trouble and buy OEM or just buy the reboot kits (OEM of course)

And what was the response from CVJ when you reached out to them about this?

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

[Billynath1988]

For what it's worth I recently contacted CVJ for a quote and the options for new cv's as the second set of boots have torn on my original OEM axles and at just about 145k I thought it might be time to move them to spares and get new rebuilt OEM.

I am still running the original OEM cv's that I rebooted with SDHQ boots 4 years ago. both sides have now cracked open on the inner boots. Considering conditions and use, I feel this is probably reasonable lifespan for reboots.

As others have stated, it appears we have an option for standard neoprene boots, (which is not as good as oem) upgraded inner red boots and upgraded to OEM toyota Hard plastic boots. Which if I understand correctly, is exactly what the trucks come with to begin with. Heres what they sent me.

I have not ordered yet, but I do plan to do the "best" one.

 

[Drunner97]

I had a CVJ high clearance boot fail with less than 10k miles on it. I've rebooted with OEM kits bought off Amazon for 50 bucks since. You're paying for convenience, not necessarily better products. I have 2 axles I need to reboot and 2 axles that I just broke that had new boots on them so I'll just be swapping the boots over from the broken ones with new grease and clamps.

 

[BackOff]

who doesn't love pictures.

Looks like your sway-bar link boot has an issue too.

While that looks more like rubber rot/UV damage to me, on the CV.

Was thinking there was a "boot stretch mod", I read about here on the site.
Helps to reduce heat/friction of the boot ribs rubbing.

This PC I use will not work with the search function any more...thank you Google, or I would try and link some threads...

 

[Billynath1988]

I had a CVJ high clearance boot fail with less than 10k miles on it. I've rebooted with OEM kits bought off Amazon for 50 bucks since. You're paying for convenience, not necessarily better products. I have 2 axles I need to reboot and 2 axles that I just broke that had new boots on them so I'll just be swapping the boots over from the broken ones with new grease and clamps.

I dont totally disagree with you, based on the avg amount of time and labor involved in rebooting an OEM axle. Id say its pretty close. I don't necessarily think their product is sub par.. your just more or less paying someone else to reboot an oem axle and ship it to you. The reason I haven't ordered yet is because im debating just rebooting again. Such a messy job tho..

 

[Drunner97]

I dont totally disagree with you, based on the avg amount of time and labor involved in rebooting an OEM axle. Id say its pretty close. I don't necessarily think their product is sub par.. your just more or less paying someone else to reboot an oem axle and ship it to you. The reason I haven't ordered yet is because im debating just rebooting again. Such a messy job tho..

Yep, cleaning the mess is the part that sucks the most. I need to invest in a parts cleaning table/bin which would make life a lot easier than doing it on the ground in a bucket.

 

[Billynath1988]

Yep, cleaning the mess is the part that sucks the most. I need to invest in a parts cleaning table/bin which would make life a lot easier than doing it on the ground in a bucket.

Last time I did this, I put a contractor bag in a big garbage can.. put a piece of wood over the of the pail and just sprayed about 3 cans of brake cleaner each axle until the grease and stuff was gone.. re greased, rebooted, re clamped, reinstalled..

 

[audiness]

Looks like your sway-bar link boot has an issue too.

While that looks more like rubber rot/UV damage to me, on the CV.

Was thinking there was a "boot stretch mod", I read about here on the site.
Helps to reduce heat/friction of the boot ribs rubbing.

This PC I use will not work with the search function any more...thank you Google, or I would try and link some threads...

Yes, my sway bar end links need attention too. I've learned my lesson those in the past too, those are non-oem replaments that have lasted less than 3 years as well. I live in South Carolina, and the weather here is more harsh on things than other places. My OEM boots lasted 13 years, I expected the premium re-mans to last more than 2 years.