OK, a buddy of mine has a 2000 Passat fwd and just put two new drive axles in it. Everything was done correctly, torque was applied in the right patterns and amounts, everything done as it should be - no twist to the joints when installed, no improper assembly or brutalizing of the axles during install, nothing.

Suddenly, after the first few miles on the axles, he'd get a moderately strong vibration under acceleration. No problems at steady cruise, decel, or braking, but every time under acceleration, it'd shake pretty bad.

He buzzed me an hour ago and said the passenger side outer CV was shot - clacking and snapping like crazy. The only thing I can think is that the axle was bad from the get-go, like they forgot to pack the outer boot with grease, or didn't assemble the joint correctly, or something along those lines.

Anyone have this happen to them? I know it's possible that he got a bad axle from the start (it is brand new, but quality escapes happen from any factory), but have you seen anything else as the cause for such a problem in the past? TIA for any feedback.

 

Its a long shot that the axle was bad to begin with...theres a better chance that it was installation error. Does he know for sure that the axle is bad or did he just say that because he wasent sure.
It sounds to me that he tighted the 6 axle bolts with a ratchet which is hard to get them tight enough because the axle will keep spining, the axle probly started shifting around a cause a bad noise.

 

when i bought my axles i had to grease them myself...they did not come with grease...

also, you are not supposed to re-use the axle bolts that hold the axle on, one of them may be coming loose...

gl!

 

Nope, the install was correct. Between the three guys working on it, we have probably 50 axle jobs under our belts, including multiples on VAG cars, with all proper tools and torque specs. He went back and loosened all the axle-diff bolts, which were still tight, retorqued them in the proper pattern first to 20lbs, then the rest of the way.

The axle wasn't spinning - the car is a tip and was in park with a guy holding the brake pedal while the bolts were torqued. The axle is definitely bad - the outer joint is popping like crazy in turns as you would expect with a bad CV joint. And on the fwd cars both joints are prepacked and sealed, unlike my quattro axles where I had to pack the inner joint.

 

i have seen bad cv joints from the factory, im a tech and we've had 2 in the last 5 months.

 

Do you know what brand of axles they are and where he got them? I just had 2 new axles put on the front last Friday, and sometimes I can feel a very slight vibration on acceleration as well. Never occurred to me it could be the new axles. I bought Empi's from ECS tuning. I'll be keeping an eye out to see if it gets any worse. I thought it may be my front tires because I just had a complete front end rebuild with a control arm kit done the same day. Minus this, the car drives like new again.

 

Is it really brand new or is it rebuilt?

One on my buddies actually bought a rebuilt axle and similar thing happened to him.