Hi, we are about to leave on vacation today and my husband just told me his CV Axle is messed up. We don't know whether the car is safe to drive on vacation, or should we cancel our trip? Details: I have been hearing his car make a clanking sound and I told him about it, but he is hard of hearing and didn't hear it. The first time he heard it was today. Is it safe for us to drive on vacation???? We are planned to leave in 3 hours, and plan to drive 150 miles today and another 150 miles tomorrow. He drives a 2003 Honda CRV. ANY ANSWERS ARE APPRECIATED!!!!
Unfortunately, you won't be leaving today.
CV axles can fly apart at high speed.
Thanks for your quick response! How long can you drive on it before it becomes dangerous?
that depends on how far along the axle is. I recommend booking the car into a shop asap.
Are you sure it's the axle? Are any of the boots torn? Do you know someone familiar with cars close by who can take a quick look? Typical indication of worn CV joints is clicking on turns. Without hearing the noise it is hard to make a recommendation or determination as to whether it's safe to drive. However noises like that are never a good thing and can be caused by a number of things especially on a nearly 19-year-old vehicle.
Thanks for your quick response! I'm asking my husband now..
He said "Upon light inspection, I see no tears. I would have to get under it for a while to find the tear or leak."... Do you have any more advice? Much appreciated!
Have him check for any play or looseness in the shaft and joints or suspension parts. As @mountainmanjoe says it is dangerous to drive high speeds with a bad driveshaft and certainly would be dangerous if the noise is from loose front end parts. I would cancel vacation rather than take a chance and wind up having to cancel it anyway with a tow or even an accident thrown in.
See here - https://carkiller.com/scottykilmer/postid/64016/
Is there any grease still remaining inside the boot? Is the boot wet?
I drove a car with the cv joint clicking for a year when i turned the car. Which is way above 150 miles. It was more like 7000 miles. The cv, constant velocity, joint is your drive axle on a front wheel drive car. They are expensive and you should not change just the left or just the right cv joint, you should do the whole shaft. It is cheaper than replacing the left and right at different times. If yours is clicking when you turn the car your cv joints are going bad. And it will eventually fall apart, but probably not in the next 300 miles.
We don't know how long it's been making the noise or if it's even the CV joint. I wonder if they took the chance and drove the car? Hopefully they at least looked at it.
If it is clicking when they turn, click, click, click, it is surely a cv joint. Bearings hum when they go bad, so I don't think it is a bearing. I think the wife knows how long it has been clicking because she heard the sound first. So when she started hearing it is when it started going bad. As long as there is no play or looseness in the front end they will be fine.
Actually she said "clanking", a sound I associate more with metal pieces banging around like loose suspension. Obviously tough to tell without a recording of the actual sound.
somebody with with the car in front of their eyes needs to make the safety assessment, not some guys guessing over the internet with vague information