This morning I found my Passenger Rear Drive shaft boot all torn up and grease all over the underneath of the car.

Best part is I spoke to Mazda only to be told "No mate becuase you have Koni's installed that's no longer under warranty and was then quoted $600-$800 to replace

Well as you can guess I gave them the finger and started calling a few contacts. One of them actually told me that most Mazda's CV joints, driveshafts etc for warranty work are actually supplied by an Australian business over in Tullamarine. I gave these guys a call and they said no worries will fix it next Saturday morning, but the guy said he was sorry but he could not give me an exact cost and if it was alright if he quoted between $60.00-$80.00 I jumped at it. He then explained to me Mazda generally will not pull the rear axle/boot apart and instead just replace the entire assembly hence Mazda's stupid repair quote!

And for his quote he will pull it apart, check the bearings, grease it all up properly, put back together and send me on my way with a 3 year unlimited km warranty on the work & parts. If Mazda replaced it I would only get 12 months on it.

It does pay to have a few friends I guess. At least now my heart is beating again

 

mmm thats the first I have heard of such a failure. The price to repair is even more shocking.

The was a good recovery on your part to get the repair done so cheap...well done.

skc

 

Maybe the installer tore the boot during the shock install. Very odd to have a driveshaft boot failure this early. It's not as if they've perished or anything.....

 

I don't entirely agree with that comment.. Yes the installer could have damaged the boot installing the shocks, but these things can be damaged by road debris.. Seen it many times with VW CV joint boots until the later models came with much thicker rubber.. Either way it is unlikely to be warranty unless lots of other owners were having problems (as happened with VW - for a while)..

Has the exploding fuel tank recall been done on the car? Is it possible a ham fisted fitter punctured the boot with a tool?? All sorts of possibilities - clouded by the addition of a set of Koni shockabsorbers... Revolver's approach of paying Mazda extra to install his Hymee exhaust sounds like a wise decision - if the busted boot had happened to Revolver they would not have got out of it as easily. (Truth is that I suspect that Revolver would like them to make his day by trying this sort of stunt on him :D :D )

You must get this done quickly - it does not take long for that grease to attract dirt and shortly after that the CV joint will be unserviceable.. $60-80 is super cheap... $600 is not unexpected, but insane... Thanks for the great information - please let us know how you get on..

 

Hey Stu.....list the Tulla shop who do the repair. Be a nice little thread to bookmark, this one.

 

Yes I have had the recall work done. I highly doubt it was from the Koni install as I was there for the entire install and I did not see anything that would have damaged it.

Until next Saturday the car is staying in the garage and going nowhere. The danger is too great of doing damage to the bearings if I drive it. That would not be cheap!

The details of the place that are doing the repairs is as follows:

AVS CV Centre
36 McIntosh Street, Airport West.
Tel: 03 9338 9455

I actually went out there this afternoon and when you walk in you see all these rolls of address stickers for many, many different Mazda dealers. So it is easy to see they obviously do a lot of dealing with the Mazda dealerships!

 

Great tip ILIV48. This will be handy the next time I need a CV boot for my Laser (the second car).

 

Great tip mate!

Cheers,
Hymee.

 

It is good to know that everything there is a solution. Thanks for the head up Stu.

 

Thanks for filling us all in.

Personally, I'd be wanting to establish cause of failure (if possible). Did you get a good look at the boot (or maybe you need to wait until it is repaired). The type and appearance of any rupture may help to determine cause.

Since you're getting out of it relatively cheaply, it is probably not worth your trouble to follow up but absent any damage caused by the Koni install I reckon Mazda would have a difficult time avoiding a warranty claim if pressed hard enough.

I also would have thought that Mazda themselves would (or should) be interested to determine the cause of such a failure.

 

The guys are going to look at the boot after it is replaced to see if there is an obvious cause. If it was sliced or stabbed by something then aparently that is not to hard to establish once you have the boot in your hand. Other than that they will look for any areas of thinning in the rubber or brittleness. Come Saturday I should have a good idea! If there is obvious areas of thinning I then plan on presenting that to the dealer.

 

Good idea. Document it properly (with photos, measurements, etc) and do not let the boot out of your custody until any warranty claim is finalised.

 

Well I had the car done this morning and all is fixed with the boot. After removing the damaged boot they gave it a good look over and said it just looks like normal wear and tear, but at 35,000km it's a bit of a worry as far as durability of the boots is concerned. So they checked the other boots just in case. These though luckily seemed fine.

Bad new was while they were having a good look at the wheels one of the guys noticed a crack in the drivers rear brake rotor. They inspected the others to also find a crack in the front passenger rotor. 2 friggin weeks before the nationals too. FRIG!