Did my CV boot take a sh*t??

I drove my car to the convenient store this morning and parked it in the driveway - no issues. Then a little later I needed to move the car into the garage and I noticed there's a glop of nasty on the floor where my car had been and sure enough, another nice one under the car where I had it on the driveway. This had to be just recent because I pretty much always park in the garage and there was just that one fresh blop on the floor.



The only thing that I could see this coming from is my driver side inner CV boot although I'm having a hard time trying to feel for any tear or hole with my hand. There's nothing else that could be right? Also you can't really see it in the picture but a couple of the edges of the boot bellows on one side looks kind of smashed in like it was smashed against something for a really long time. I dunno - it just doesn't really look right to me. Anyway has anyone seen this on this car and what would be the most painless way to deal with it? I don't believe there's anything wrong with the rest of my CV axle so I assume just buy a replacement boot kit but then I've never serviced a CV shaft so I don't quite know how that goes.

Yup, torn boot.

Two approaches. Replace the boot, or replace the CV shaft. To replace the boot requires the shaft to be removed, or else install a "split boot". I don't think split boots are very good. If you replace the boot don't forget to grease the joint first.

Generally, disassembling the CV joint is messy and a challenge, but not all that bad. Needs to be disassembled for a boot replacement.

If you aren't up for a challenge, just replace the shaft.

I just youtube'd the process. It doesn't look too bad. I would just replace the axle but all I hear from the w-body crew is that aftermarket axles are junk and OEM is $$$, plus I'm pretty certain mine has not spent much time getting crudded up with contaminents due to having a torn boot for a long time. I was just working near that area of the car a week ago and I would have seen something if my boot was torn and spitting out grease like you see it now. That shit is everywhere! So much for nice clean new cradle...

Yeah there are def. issues with some reman axles - some will last forever, some will last a month. But they have a "lifetime warranty"!!!!11!

For the sake of saving time since I don't have much of it to spend right now I decided to pick up a new axle from OReilly's with a lifetime warranty. I think it was $70. I've read nothing but bad things on the remans so I'm hoping I'll have more luck with the new one. I'm definitely saving my old one and when I get around to it, I'll re-boot it and have it ready in case the new one craps out.

It's in. Pretty easy to remove/install. It took me more time to clean all the grease off the car than the actual replacement of the axle. My only dumbo move was that after I had the old axle out, I started the engine to turn the wheel a bit to line up the strut better which dumped about a qt of trans fluid onto the floor from where the axle goes in the trans.

I'm at 202,605mi right now. We'll see how long this one lasts.