Had Much Luck With "Kwik Boots"? I Sure Haven't…

It’s always one of those pro/con situations, whether to replace an entire half-shaft or "just" swap on a new CV boot. What if there’s just a hairline crack in your original boot, you’ve hardly lost any grease, and you know the joint is still good? To me it seems wasteful to replace the entire shaft when all you need is a boot. At the last shop I worked in, we had one of those lovely spreaders that’d quite nearly ploink a replacement CV boot on for you. But my former shop is an entire continent away now, so I decided to try out one of the joe-shmoe semi-universal boots. More…

It was an exciting bright blue affair (not pictured), made by Dorman, that came in two halves. It’s been said that replacement-CV-boot technology has come a long way, and I wanted to believe. It was fun enough at first—with the little tubes of glue and grease and the interlocking seam, assembling the two halves was kind of like a grade-school craft project. But keep in mind, no matter what your skill level, the install is anything but "kwik"—you glue up the first seam, then have to wait at least an hour for it to cure. Then factor in another hour’s cure time after you glue the second seam once you’ve installed it around the half-shaft.

Speaking of that, the installation of the boot on the car was where things really started turning into a wrestling match. The instructions’ frequent exhortation to keep from getting grease on any of the gluey surfaces was a farce, because the entire point of a CV joint is to be all grease, all the time—it’s going to be a mess no matter what, but if you get any grease in the seam, the seam won’t cure properly. Catch-22, right? Also, the boot didn’t really fit—the openings were both huge—though it included what the manufacturer clearly thought was a clever little adapter that turned out to be basically impossible to install, given the clearances and the grease. And finally, the extremely flimsy lie-flat clamps included with the kit turned out to be too bulky to even clear the lower control arm, so it was clear that my boot was going to be lying in the road if I tried to drive so much as a block following the install.

Hey, it’s not like I’ve got the world’s greatest skills, and I’d love nothing more to be told that I’m doing it wrong—then I could blame myself instead of the boot, and I wouldn’t have to feel like a sucker for buying it. But this really seems to be one of those products that any given person will buy only once—and even so, the company will still make enough money to stay in business. The verdict: always be wary of any product that purports to make your life easier. If you really want you life to be easier, just replace the freakin’ half-shaft.