I am the owner of a 2004 Audi A6 and I live in Singapore, I have had the car since new and I have already had the CV boots replaced 2 times and of course since all the grease fell out the joints have been replaced also fortunately at the cost of the local Audi Dealer. The car has now 72K Kilometers on the clock and I recently sent the car for servicing. Once again I am being told that the rubber boots have split and both joints need to be replaced since once again the grease has come out and the joint is damaged.

My question is are there any know issues with the rubber boots on the A6 2004 model? This is the second Audi I have owned and I am dissapointed at the reliability of this newer model. The last one I owned was a Audi 100 in 1987 and I drove it from new to 128K Miles in 2 years and loved it. But this one........not so good.

By the way I am also told the the water pump is leaking and needs to be replaced is this also common in the A6??

 

I would look for an external cause.

I just did my boots yesterday.

Make sure the boots are totally fitted over the CV. Any slack or excess can cause the boot to bunch up and maybe hit something as it rotates.

Check the clamps and other things that may interfere. With the car off and one person inside turn the wheel to the left and rotate the tires by hand. See as they move the wheel from left to right would the boot rub against anything.

Is there air stuck in the boot when you seal it?

Is it the right boot? Audi's with the double control arm setup have huge amounts of wheel travel. The wrong boot might not articulate enough and break.

Check your alignment too. You could have the toe set out too far and at extreme lock that is stressing the boot.

Do both boots fail at once?

Are they using OE boots?

 

You are around 45k US miles. That's not much to have the boots go twice. I'm at 118k and still original. Not much consolation, but it hasn't been a high failure part for me. Good luck.

Could it be climate related?

 

How is the road condition in Singapore? Obviously the boots are put into higher stress if you are turning a lot and exposed to rough road condition, such as dirt, grease and etc.

 

The boots on my 99 A6 Avant went at around 60k miles.

This on a Colorado car that has spent 15k miles in the AZ heat before the boots walked out of town...and left a nice mess on the insides of my rims.

I agree that mounting and making sure the seals are all seated properly is the main thing, but cleaing out the joint is just as important.

If the joint was not cleaned out, then you're just squishing more crap with new grease into those fat ball bearings. This causes undo heat, which leads to joint or boot failure. You may have to replace the joints or axle assemblies, just to make sure this problem does not re-occur after only a few thousand K's.

The water pump! Don't get me started on THAT. There are TONS of threads about how POORLY engineered that darn thing is, and I would have thought that by '04 they would have at least put a @#$%$#$ pin through the impeller & axle vs. just press-fitting them together and allowing heat cycles to ruin MANY ENGINES...AND NO HELP ROM AUDI if this occurs after your Warranty is up...NO RECALL! Cost me over $1200 US a few years ago.

um, yeah. Have your waterpump replaced.