Don’t know if anyone has experienced this but my 10my 3.6 TDV8 failed its mot last year for the following:-

Offside Front Drive shaft joint constant velocity boot split or insecure, no longer prevents the ingress of dirt (6.1.7 (g) (ii))

The garage (general not specialist) did the repair which a genuine LR ‘boot’. About a month later I had it serviced at a different garage and they rang to say the boot had split and needed replacing. Obviously I didn’t want to pay twice so took the car back to the original garage to fix under warranty.

Cutting a long story short, this has happened three times now. The last time a new LR clip was ordered to hold the boot. The original MOT garage have a very good reputation so I am wondering if there is a special tool or process involved for this job.

Or if the garage are in fact, cr*p?!!

Ummm. Perhaps your last question there. I had one of my front ones replaced back in June last year with a gen boot - no problems.

Thanks Stu, that what I was thinking but wanted to give them the benefit of doubt! They’re having it back on Tuesday to have a final attempt to fix it.

Just hoping that running it in this condition won’t have caused any further problems

The proper clip should be clamped on with a special crimping tool designed for the clips (its a fairly standard type of crimp). Once its on, its really unusual / difficult for it to loosen / fail.

Whilst you can close it up in a bodge way without the tool, with the tool its a far better, cleaner grip formed by the clip running round the boot. You can in theory also re-use a clip ... but its much weaker and never really grips back together well.

There isn't really any special knack to the whole job as such:

Get the drive shaft out, take the boots off, split open one of the CV joints, slide new boots into place, put CV joint back together, fill boots with grease and fit the clips. refit the driveshaft.

There are some alternatives which in theory could save some time ... so a garage might try it ...

1) is to have a large cone shape tool to stretch the boot fully over the cv joint so that you dont have to split open one of the joints. Considering that the thin end of the boot is about 3cm diamter, and the cv joint is typically about 8 to 10cm diameter ... thats a lot of stretching of the rubber boot ... more that I would think is appropriate.

2) is to get one of the kits where the boot is pre-cut down its length, you wrap it around the joint, and then glue it back to close it up. Now unless you are able to keep the boot surfaces youre gluing clean, then how good will the join be, how good will it able to flex repeatedly etc etc ... i.e. I wouldnt trust it. V8 or else ...

Had one of mine replaced on the 3.6, the garage has one go at it and it wasn’t a problem again! There is nothing that can't be fixed with a hammer😜😜
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Thanks for your comments. They had it in on Tuesday to try again. Had a call Tuesday afternoon to say that they had caught the (suspension) airbag and punctured it whilst fitting the boot! Apologised profusely and said that they would replace it at their cost.

Picked up car yesterday evening and all was well in the one mile drive home! Fingers crossed it stays that way.......!

they dont sound the most careful lot tbh....

What makes you say that tony66 ?!!