I hope the turbo fwd cars have nearly the same setup so i can get some help with this, i dont know alot about the drivetrain so i guess i should ask before i do anything stupid. i was driving the other day and when i pulled into a parkinglot and i heard a smash. My lower front balljoint acctually broke in half, which caused the wheel to turn sideways and bend my fender, and rip my cv joint out. The dust boot is compleatly ripped in half and there is greese everywhere. There doesnt seem to be any visual damage to the joint its self, but like i said i dont know much about them. I need to know if it would be possible to just replace the dust boot and when i put a new lower control arm on just slip it back into the housing, or do i have to buy a drivers side axle. If i can just slip it back in, how do i get a new dust boot on? can i just take the other boot of behind the rotor and unbolt it and slid a new one on or is it alot more complicated? Thanks for any help, and if you need some pictures i would be happy to take some.

replace it. which side?

replace it. which side?

drivers side, i might be getting a set from ryan though.

If the joint is not damaged, you can replace just the boot. You can get a replacement boot that "clamps" on where the old one was. Don't use these; they're garbage.

You must remove the driveshaft from the car to replace the boot. You can separate the outer cv joint with a BFH, but it's a PITA. The easier way is to remove the inner cv boot, and separate the inner joint. The inner joint just slides apart when the boot is gone. You can then slide the new outer boot onto the axle. Be sure to clean out the joints so there's no dirt in there. Grease them up well, and clamp the new boots on.

If you've already got the balljoint apart, replacing the boots is a piece of cake. Make that a piece of messy, greasy cake.

Same thing happened to me, except the balljoint nut had backed off. New axle boot from NAPA and I was good to go.

I just went ahead and bought a used axle, now im in the process of yelling at every bolt that hasnt moved in 12 years until i just get pissed of and cut them off.