i popped my hood today to find that there is white grease on the passenger side down near the axle. i felt the boot but i couldnt feel a tear, but thats the only place i could think of it comign from. i drove it and took some tunrs and i couldnt hear any clicking. also, is the axle suposed to have a lil play coming in and out of the tranny? cbecasue mine does. any help is apprecizted

 

I dont know about the White part of the grease thing, but if you didnt drive over something, it does sound like the boot.

 

ehh, tony and me looked at it. he said itll be fine, when it breaks ill just replace the whole thing.

 

Replace the boot. It costs WAY less than the whole axle. If there is no clicking and the joint feels smooth, replace the boot only. Chances are it's leaking past the clamp. The lighter color grease is used on the inside boot, the darker grease is used on the outer. There is a difference too, so dont mix match grease types when installing the new boots.

 

Yea dude it's the axle. Mine is doing the exact same thing. I'm just replacing mine. Same axle too haha.

 

Yeah i think mine is going Bad cause i have a Huge Rip in my driverside boot. i dont have the clicking sound yep(at least i dont think so) Sucky thing is i haven't the tools nor the know how on fixing it. any know what a shop would charge to do it?

 

Doesn't mean it's going bad if the boot is just ripped.

 

You can still go tens of thousands of miles on a ripped boot. I know of a certain Subaru wagon that has 165,000 miles on it, and the boot ripped at 30k. Sure it makes a little noise, but it will still get you there.

All the boot does is keep the grease in, and moisture/junk out. The length of time it takes for it to fail depends on how much junk you can cram in there and how wet you get it.

If you ever run over a plastic bag, make sure you see it exit the rear of your car. I ran over one in my civic, half the bag snagged a bolt head, and the other half wrapped around my axle. Almost instantly it tightened around the boot and sawed through it. I know that's what cut the boot because I was the one that picked the Food Lion bag out of the joint. Brand new axle, too. It's not unusual for a boot to leak, but a punctured boot is usually what eventually causes the joint failure.

 

My boot has a cut in it about an inch wide. All the grease is pretty much gone. I tried putting more grease back in it and sealing it but it didn't work.

 

Try stuffing a greasy food lion bag in it. It worked for me.