I was washing my 08 Scion xB one beautiful afternoon and I noticed some dirty grease on the rim. I took a closer inspection and little behold what I thought was little turned out to be a lot. My first thoughts were the Lower ball joint, it had previously snowed and the snow plows just made the potholes worse, riding on TRD 19's it is best to avoid them but at times its safer not to. I jacked up the front end and I saw the massacre. Grease was flung everywhere!!! Along the rim, on the brake lines, on the backing plate, even some go on the rotor! It was everywhere! 100 miles previously both front wheel bearing were bad and replaced under warranty, apparently the previous owner hit a curb and when repaired they failed to replace the wheel bearing hubs.

I then brought my xBreezy to the dealership and I brought up the subject that they serviced the vehicle and now there is grease all over the front passenger side. Right away they had a technician come out, take a quick look, and asked if I had time where they could put it on the lift. I agreed, and 30 minutes later they found the problem. A busted CV axle boot! How could this happen? Many possibilities but I can't be exact as to what happened; Expansion of the boot when water freezed inside from a small tear? Girlfriend hit the biggest pot hole? Ran over a possum and a bone sliced the boot? Who knows? The cv boot was then special ordered and the warranty covered everything, even the cleaning of all that grease. I just wished they replaced the whole CV Axle instead of just the boot.

Toyota/Lexus/Scion Blog

 

youre still good if it was just the boot. We lose CV boots in out class1 buggy on 400 + mile races and the cv axles are still fine after the race and trust me the stress is 1000X harder and they're toyota cv's :D

 

Where's that dealership? Good to hear they replaced it under warranty.

 

Thanks for the info! The dealership is in Virginia Beach "Checkered Flag," it was part of the power train warranty, 2 years/13,000 miles left for me....

 

This is a common problem, why I don't know. Both of mine were recently replaced under the power train warranty

 

No need to replace the CVJ just because the boot ripped (it's generally a question of how long it's been damaged). However, if dirt gets into the CVJ, then there's a problem.

 

Thats what i'm worried about, if any dirt got inside, considering how much coated grease around the area I wouldn't be surprised. Hopefully the technician heavily cleaned before installing the new boot.