drive axle question

On my 96 tdi station wagon passat the passenger side drive axle half shaft has a balancer or vibration dampener. The replacement does not. Is the dampener necessary?

VW rarely puts things on cars they don't consider "necessary".

Aftermarket axles are generally not as good as factory ones as far as vibration is concerned. The smoothest possible ride will come from factory axles with factory joints and all other bits and pieces intact. Aftermarket axles will function fine, the car will move under its own power but the ride might not be quite as smooth as it was when new.

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Thank you for responding. I was wondering about that.

I have noticed there are some aftermarket axles on ebay with vibration controls on them. Has anyone had experience with these?

for sometime now ive bought axles from NAPA, easy-peasy. about $50 per axle, w/core, never had a problem. they are both local and covered by warranty. no dampener tho, for the price$ & reliability, dont notice difference. most parts they get the next day.

vanbcguy said:

VW rarely puts things on cars they don't consider "necessary".

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What they consider necessary and what is actually necessary are not always the same thing. I have a box containing, among other things, a passenger airbag, a DRL light switch jumper, a plastic engine cover, a fifth fuel injector, 12-point turbo mounting bolts, and a plastic oilpan cover that all want to disagree.

I would source a new OE or Löbro CV joint, and a new boot, instead of an aftermarket axle.

I would fix the OEM axle with a good quality CV joint and boot. The Chaxles are garbage... and I mean GARBAGE. The play and slop they get in short order is staggering. Especially on a diesel.

I don't think the one that has been on it is the original. The manual says the original comes in haves and you can take it off. The one that is on it would be difficult to take of and would not come off in to pieces. I'm on limited income and cannot purchase original equipment so guess I will have to live within my means. The car is damaged has I lot of miles on it anyway. I am thankful for all suggestions.

On the other hand, maybe I will go with an oem when I can find a used one and overhaul it myself with oem parts, but in the mean time use this $44.00 junk until I can get it all together. Does that make sense?

Only if it has a good warranty and you don't much value your time. Crappy parts can be false economy.

On the other hand, with what I'm seeing for prices and availability of quality CV joints (80 and up for each joint), I can't blame you for trying.

Does anyone know if new OE axles are even obtainable anymore? My local dealer quotes $280 but it's unclear if they can actually get it.

The OE passenger side axle is hollow for a reason. It also has a vibration damper ring for a reason too. The cheap replacements are often not hollow and don't have the damper so I wouldn't consider one of these satisfactory.

For those on a limited income it would be best to just replace the offending CV joint on the original axle shaft and thereby retain the OE axle shaft and the vibration damper.

I think it's really the most cost effective too.

Steve

i donno steve, although i dont totally disagree. 1 cv boot runs something like ~$20. how much is an outboard joint? an oem one? its been quite a while since ive disassembled a cv. since ive found napa $50 are rather good, (whole axle) no problems there, for me anyway.
and if you remove an axle and do one side you really (emphasis on >) should do the other,inner boot. thats another ~$20 easy.

Inner boots live a very long life usually, unless someone discarded the heat shield. Get a quality (Lobro or GKN) joint kit and it will come with a boot.
Aftermarket boots are as bad as their axles. You will likely have better luck retaining the original boot.

If one axle has already failed, a smart person might think about rebooting the other axle to preserve it's life. Use real quality boots only.

I have used both Lobro and GKN boot kits and been happy. Drive axles are something I'm particularly picky about. I've purchased cars before with replacements and unfortunately when people buy those they trade in their factory axle shaft as a core so you end up with a new Chinese junk axle and no original axle shaft.

If you want to extend the life of your CV joints you can flip them from one side to the other, changing the direction of wear on the joint. I've done this to both inner and outer CV joints on my car.

Truth be told I would prefer a used OE CV that I can verify is good rather than have a Chinese axle from Napa that I couldn't trust any further than I could throw it. Repacking CV's isn't actually all that tough and I think the boots are pretty cheap.

Steve

oilhammer said:

I would fix the OEM axle with a good quality CV joint and boot. The Chaxles are garbage... and I mean GARBAGE. The play and slop they get in short order is staggering. Especially on a diesel.

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Are "Chaxles" Raxles or just a label you use for Chinesium axles?

It just makes me spitting mad how much of our manufacturing base has been given to the Chinese. In the not to distant future American jobs will be fast food and that bogus IT industry. Oh wait, a lot of customer support IT jobs have already moved to India..........

Ol'Rattler said:

It just makes me spitting mad how much of our manufacturing base has been given to the Chinese. In the not to distant future American jobs will be fast food and that bogus IT industry. Oh wait, a lot of customer support IT jobs have already moved to India..........

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Ant-people or androids, take your pick. Read an article yesterday about a Wisconsin company installing robots, because they "can't find workers" for their sheet metal assembly line. Hmm, economy must be pretty good there.

Then several paragraphs later, they confirm what you were asking in your mind: ..."at $10.50/hour".