Torn CV boot. Is it age, lift, or both?

Hi all,

I noticed grease in my wheel well (yay). Sure enough, my CV boot looks freshly torn.

My truck is a 2000 Tacoma manual transmission 5vzfe (3.4) 4x4 TRD I believe with ADD.

I have Fox

$977 2.0 IFP Fox 2.0 Performance Coil-Over Front Pair compatible with 2005-2016 Toyota Tacoma

2.0 IFP shocks with SPC upper control arms. I guess it’s supposed to be a 2” lift up front. I have about the same lift in the rear. The truck is pretty much level.

I installed the Fox/SPC about a year ago, or 5k miles.

The truck has about 186k miles on the original CV axles.

Do you think the boot tore due to age, or is it the lift, or a combo of both?

Should I reduce my lift and then replace the CV axle? Or just replace the CV axle with the lift as-is and cross my fingers?

If I do the CV axle I’m going to use a Toyota part.

Here’s a pic of the driver side CV axle. Sorry the truck is on a slight hill (driver’s side is downhill). There’s no flat spot anywhere on my driveway/garage.

 

2” is fine for stock cv axle just put a diff drop. Ik when I had to redo my cv axle toyota didnt have any and told them to give me a call when they have one, waited a month and nothing so i put some auto zone junker in ther for now.

 

It’s most likely age. Yes lifting your truck does affect cv axles but your lift is fine. For reference I replaced my original CVs around 160k miles

 

Both though the age effected it more then the lift changed just how the boots had been set all those years.

 

Didn't Toyota run out of remans last year? And if they were available, there's a core charge on top.

If you can, buy the boot kit with grease and replace yourself.

 

You angles look fine and as others have mentioned, the tear is likely just due to age + the (slight) change in positioning from the lift. It happens to a lot of us - when we lift the truck, 20 years later - that in the first few thousand miles, one or both boots tend to tear. Definitely happened to me when I put on a lift (to OEM CVs with original boots) back in 2018.

The good news is that it's pretty easy (and not too expensive) to reboot them yourself. Here's a step-by-step guide with photos and links to the parts and tools you'll need to do the job. It's a messy one, but not difficult.

How-to: Rebooting a Tacoma CV Axle

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The tear is most likely a combination of age and the lift. The lift puts more of an angle on an aged boot and the boot can't handle it. Boots tearing after a lift is VERY common.

That write-up linked above looks well done. For those that prefer a video, check it out below. That job I filmed was on 4runner axles and they are slightly different and the write-up shows very well the difference. The tripod on the Tacoma axles is held in place a little differently. With the 4runner axles I reboot in the video, the tripod comes off by just removing one c-clip above the tripod. For the Tacoma axle, you first have to release a c-clip below the tripod and slide it down the shaft so you can push the tripod down to expose another c-clip above. Once the upper c-clip is removed, you can then slide the tripod off the shaft. Other than that one difference, the process of rebooting is the same. Write-ups are helpful, but they just can't show the same detail a video can. It's basically the difference between 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional. There's really no comparison in my opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/vcCT4UgFUTw

 

Woah hey there Timmah! I’ve watched so many of your videos, I’m like your biggest fan. I’ve been watching your CV vids to help me find the right parts. I think I’m going to do my oil seals while I’m in there.

I ended up ordering new CV axles since mine are so old, and I don’t know how much grime may have gotten into the bearings behind the torn boot. Also, the only spot I can jack up a truck is blocking the garage door, so it’s important I can always finish a job like this in one day.

I’ll keep the old CV axles in case I ever need to reboot them.

Dang these things are expensive tho!

 

For the oil seal job, there's a super cool tool the Wit's End company makes for the job. I showcase it in the video below replacing seals on a Lexus GX470. The tool is now available with an extra long driving handle which makes it even better. That driving handle also works super well for driving in the ECGS bushing on the driver side of the front diff. The tool is linked in the video description.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q-RO52NtP1A

 

This is what exactly happened to my truck, it's age.

 

I’d like to order the tool. They only have preorder right now. I might want to do the job before the tool becomes available.

How did you get one of those already?

 

Hmmm, I thought he had it available for sale already. I got one of the first ones because he knew I was going to shoot a video showcasing it.

 

Dan , what about aftermarket long travel boots like this?

 

Just replace the CV. 186k is enough. Assuming the front diff fluid hasnt been changed it would be a good idea to swap that also. Drain it before you pry the axle out. Dont forget your axle seal, copper washer for fill hole and crush washer for drain hole. 85w-90.

take the time to remove the skid plates and youll thank me. Buy a pump for the fluid from Amazon for the refill, impossible to squeeze a quart bottle up there. While i do love buying new tools a piece of 2” PVC with a slip coupler on the end fits PERFECT for pressing that seal in.

have fun!

 

I have no first-hand experience with them, but unless you're running a LT setup, I'd stick with the Toyota boot kits. In my experience, they last the longest and fail due to age more than to lift (as long as you stay at 3" or less, which you want to anyway since even at 3" you have almost no downtravel).

In fact, while I'm sure there are plenty, I don't know that I've heard of anyone having a (Toyota) rebooted CV tear a boot, but I've seen several of the CVJ "extended travel" (red) boots tear. That - to me - reinforces the theory that most people tear boots when they first lift their truck. In that situation, the boots on the truck are usually (a) as old as the truck and (b) have "worn in" at the pre-lift ride height. Changing the angles on them puts stress in places that weren't previously stressed, and the boot tears. A new boot, at the new ride height, can "wear in" at that height and be fine for a long time.

All anecdotal of course.

 

Good observation, I added a 2.5" lift at 30k miles and inner boot tore (from wearing a groove) at 60k miles. Between then and now, additional 250k miles or so I only had one boot failure and if I recall correctly it was actually the outer boot tore which I think is unusual.

Also I have been spraying my boots with silicon spray every time I wash the truck, they have this at any auto parts store. No idea if this helps but something changed to at least double my boot life.

 

At 186k on my 2001 I added a 3” lift , Well what I think is a 3 inch lift basically Bilstien 5100 on EMU 882 springs on setting zero with a 2.7 L engine. Almost Immediately within 300 miles both the inner boots started leaking a tiny amount of grease and flinging it luckily I don’t see any tears so I think for this particular problem I can pull the CV axles which are still Original. Then I can use Turbodb’s CV reboot tutorial before I actually get a tear and ruin the nice Toyota CVs.

I’ve also been spraying them with silicone.