The sneed4speed ones we carry are good. The OEM ones are much more money but do come with the full mount on the passenger side. Most of the aftermarkets you have to reuse the mount and insert the bearing into it. If there is ever a problem with them and you buy from us we are here for you.
Some people have issues with axles because they lower the car or "slam" it and without shortening the axles no matter what they are, they will tend to chew up axles. If the joints are fine and the bearing does not make noise (whirl) you can do just the boots, But most people do the axle because then they dont have to replace all the boots.

 

I just did this on my daughter's R50. The right outer CV boot was torn open. I purchased the Febi CV boot kit from ECS Tuning, cleaned up and rebooted both axles. Not a bad job. I used a good amount of brake cleaner to clean out the old CV grease and saw there were no signs of scoring or wear on the CV joint components. While in there, I replaced the ball joints, wheel bearings, and installed PowerFlex control arm bushings. The vehicle has 125K on it and drives like new.

If you don't have a CV boot clamp tool, the Schwaben tool from ECS is great. I had purchased an OTC brand tool from a local auto parts store and it broke on the second clamp I used it on. The Schwaben tool is much higher quality than the OTC and about the same cost.

-Jeff

 

 

Ok, just make sure you knock out all these first while you are down there, especially those rear lower control arms bushings to powerflex.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ll-joints.html

 

Anyone have shortened axles off the shelf, or how much shorter should they be if custom made?

 

I have only seen people having this done at shops that do axles or contacting a vendor/manufacture directly and having them made to order. Guess since not too many people do it there is no off the self parts.

 

Yeah, I bought Powerflex everything. What are the tale tale signs that I need now axles are just boots? I'm really considering just getting new ones while I'm at it.

 

If you just have a grease leak just put a new boot on it. The original MINI axles are the best and most reliable. The aftermarket axles are NOT.
https://www.waymotorworks.com/oem-cv-boot-kit.html

These OEM kits are the same kit we use in our shop as they rubber on these boots last longer and come with the proper grease and clamps. I find the aftermarket boots are harder and tend to fail easier.