My 98 A4 has a bad cv joint on the front passanger side. If I grab the shaft, I can move it all over the place, so i know it's bad. The strange thing is that the car will not move at all. The engine runs good with no lights or codes when in park or netural. If i shift to drive or reverse there is a loud grinding noise coming from the engine bay in the cv shaft area. With that front wheel jacked up i can rotate it with lots of grinding. My question is can a competely blown cv joint cause the car not to drive the other 3 wheels?

 

yes. once one of the axles is disconnected from the tranny the way the diffs are designed will not allow the car to move. i suggest replacing your whole axle.

 

yep, i you loose one wheel on a quattro your not going anywhere. best just replace the whole axle, its actually cheaper than replacing the joint. make sure you use new bolts. a few of us had our new axles fall off.

 

Yep, agreed with these guys. Don't try and rebuild the joint - it's way more hassle than just replacing the axle (and that way you get two new joints in the process).

 

Yep, that's what I did. Replaced the whole shaft and bolts. Back on the road. Thanks for the replays.