I found this young guy that loves to work on Volvos and he has a lift and a heated garage. He did my spring seats and sway bar links the other day while I stood around BSing with his Dad. Well the thumping, squeaking and rattling noise is gone, but he found that my CV boot on the passenger side is torn pretty bad. He says he would probably just let it go until it goes bad cause of the amount of work involved in just replacing the boot. What do you think? It's a 98 V70 GLT.

 

We just bought a 96 Avalon to replace the Camry my daughter totaled. It had a torn tie rod boot. They said to change it as this is a lubricated part and if the torn boot was left as is then dirt would be allowed to get in the area and reduce the life of the component. I would think that this would also be the case with your car. My thought is that Volvo felt that this area needed additional protection so they added the boot. Therefore I would go ahead and change it.

 

I would buy a rebuilt axle and install it.
That is usually almost the same in cost as just replacing the boot.

 

Tech's right, but if you don't want to shell out the money now; Glop the inside up with grease, add some tie wraps the best you can to keep out the weather and run it until it starts clicking. I bet you'll get some good life out of it still.

 

Eric, that is pretty much what the kid who worked on the car said. Right now it's not making any noise whatsoever. Basically don't waste time and money just replacing the boot until the axle needs replaced which kind of goes with what tech said too.

 

i just had the same thing when i was changing ball joints i took it a indy volvo guy he took the axle out replaced the boot which was $60 aftermarket and charged me a half an hour labour

 

Both of my cars have torn boots just waiting for the clicking on mine to replace the axles.
The white one has bad inner joints and is getting new axles very soon.