CV Boot

Cleanman

Hi all,

I had my car serviced today. They did a bit of work and charged me €200. All ok there. Thing is that I told them I had an NCT coming up and they said it was fine to pass. I'm just after coming back from the test and it failed. :mad:Something called the CV boot is cut/frayed and needs replacing.

So should my mechanic have spotted this and made the change? Is it something that is easy to spot or one of these things that would only be spotted at the NCT?

I'm not too happy given that I paid €200 and obviously the €55 for the test and now €28 for the retest and whatever the cost of replacing the CV Boot is.

dieselbug

I would'nt be too quick to put the blame on anyone to be honest about it.

Your mechanic may be in the wrong or not, but it can be very difficult to predict what the nct will pass or not.

On the other side of things, I had a 04 almera recently that failed on rear brake imbalance but on inspection the front brakes were in very poor condition, definitely dangerous in my opinion but passed nct on brake performance.

The challenge is to explain this to the customer after they have passed nct.
Most that don't know you will think you are trying to pull a fast one and who could blame them.

visual

Your mechanic may have missed it, not all tears or splits in a rubber cv boot are obvious.

But what has this to do with a service ?

Renegade Mechanic

visual wrote: »

But what has this to do with a service ?

During a service a check on all cv boots is routine. However, a tiny pinhole is difficult to spot unless serious time is put into inspecting it.

Op, Id bring the car back. They might only be too happy to rectify the fault, and waiver labour (possibly not the 28 euro retest) Any garage that doesnt include that in the list of checks for a 200 euros service isnt great tbh..

Cleanman

Great - thanks for the replies guys.

My query was really if the CV Boot is damaged, is it an obvious thing to spot. I'm taking it from replies that it is something they should have checked but that it's not always obvious. On the other hand, from where I'm standing, the tester picked it up in the 5 minutes he spent under the car.

I'll give them a call today and see if if they will rectify the problem without charging me an arm and a leg.

Cleanman

Just to let you know, I phoned the garage earlier and was told that the CV Boot was a very inexpensive piece of kit (he said something about €5 -€10) and to pop in next time I'm close and they would fit it.

Sounded like he is just going to charge me the cost of the equipment, so needless to say I'm very happy with that. Pain in the ass having to go back to the garage twice and redo the test but these things happen. It's my first time using the garage and if they only charge me the cost of the gear, I'd be happy to go back to them again.

Thanks for the replies yesterday - much appreciated.

Renegade Mechanic

Sounds reasonable. Glad it worked out:)

barneygumble99

If there is a split in a cv boot its going to be obvious as there will be grease around the tear.