come laugh at me // axle damage from lowered car, video attached
 

half of this is asking your opinion, the other half is just documenting whats happening for anyone/my future reference

I think i damaged my axle from either lowering my car, or having my rear tow WAY out of wack. it seems that the boot was being pulled a little and grease was getting out, but there was also a rubbing sound associated

background: I installed FA500 coils 3 weeks ago, no problems ~1 inch drop
about four days ago i put in SPL rLCA on the low setting, without upgrading toe arms, and drove for 4 days with wack toe, before the toe arms came in the mail. for the last 2 days of being on wack toe, i heard some "rubbing" ( every couple of bumps, i would get a brief rubbing sound, not prolonged, not consistent,sparse) . when i say toe out of wack, i mean visibly toed out about ten degrees on either side, driving was sketchy as hell.

the toe arms went on today, and during the install i was poking around trying to find the source of the rubbing. i found grease that apparently was spitting out of the axle boot, leaving a line of grease. so the "rubbing" (rotational scraping sound) i was hearing was def coming from that axle somehow.

i am definitely not all that low in the grand scheme of things, but my toe was WAY out of the norms in the grand scheme. traction control was lighting up on me etc, the cars end was drifting from side to side. etc. so i suspect the axle issue arose from bad toe, not lowness

I put the toe arms in, set the toe by eyeball (lol) , and drove it, still on low SPL setting, MUCH better, and the axle "rubbing" noise was entirely gone, making me believe that the toe was the culprit, not the lowness. when you toe out, it actually pulls the axle out a touch, i was surprised to see that the axle actually can be push in and out ~ half an inch either direction or so.

as of now, with toe at a reasonable level (getting alignment tm), there is no more "rubbing" and everything is fine, so im going to just sweep it under the rug for now, monitor the axle by visual inspection up on stands, and keep an ear out for noises. I am assuming that this was caused by the wack toe, not the lowness,because people are MUCH lower than me, but i have never seen or heard of anyone with toe wacker than me

has anyone seen this before and is this line of grease a tell tale sign that is commonly the symptom of a blown axle that i just dont know about?

YouTube video i made here:
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87lIPHbGVsY"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87lIPHbGVsY[/ame]

https://i.imgur.com/CuzU7j0.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/YabYGOJ.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/kFfhT7s.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/a2dtbjf.jpg

Dude 10 degrees?! That’s crazy

Axle boots leaking grease are a common issue on the car, though usually happens due to wear-and-tear and not yanking on the axle itself.


It's not a sign that the axle is bad. It just means its time to replace the boots. I just replaced my passenger inner CV boot in December. Not even two months later, my driver side inner CV boot is starting to leak. Monitor it closely. If the leak is severe, it should be addressed quickly. If you lose too much grease and run it dry, the bearings will eat themselves. An axle boot kit costs $40. A new axle costs $300.



Clean up the grease, drive on it, and go back under. Check and see how much it continues to sling. Based on how runny yours looks, it would be advisable to take action soon.