Superb V6 TDi, though applies to almost anything else VAG with minor changes

Time:

First go about 2 - 2.5 hours

Requirements:

Replacement CV joint, about £25-30 with postage off ebay (Hint: Search for a passat cv joint)

An assistant

Big engined cars: 17mm Hex Drive

Smaller engined cars: 14mm Hex Drive

If you've bought a non-oem replacement CV joint you'll also need a 27mm socket as they supply a plain bolt sometimes rather than an allen bolt.

10mm Splined driver

Trolley jack/axle stands

Flat blade screwdriver.

Cardboard, lots of cardboard.

One of these helps infinitely more than a breaker bar, but is about 30 times more expensive:

Procedure:

Jack the car up, place on axle stands - do NOT work on the car without axle stands, you're as good as dead. You need enough clearance to slide underneath the engine and gearbox on your back.

Remove the rear half of the undertray, this is five screws that need to come out then it can be removed by sliding it backwards.

Remove the wheel in question, place at least one of the wheel bolts back into the hub through the brake disk finger tight.

Remove the ABS sensor, it's only in push tight, wiggle it carefully and it'll slide out of the hub.

The centre bolt will be in massively tight, it took the impact wrench a good 20 seconds of hammering to get it to come free so if you're using a breaker bar you're going to need to put a lot of grunt into it. If the joint in there is OEM, it'll have a hex bolt in it, you'll need a good quality 17mm or 14mm hex driver to get it out. I'd highly recommend buying an impact rated one due to the torque that has to go through it. You'll need an assistant to stand on the brake pedal while you do this otherwise the hub will just spin.

This is with the replacement bolt in that came with the non OEM CV joint.

Next! Slide under the car with your 10mm splined driver, and find the other end of the driveshaft:

There are six bolts in here, and again you'll need an assistant to step on the brake pedal while you remove them.

Once they're out, shift the whole hub towards the outside of the car, disengage it then lift it up and towards the front of the car. Your assistant helps here by disengaging the old cv joint from the hub by pushing it towards the centre of the car.

Once it's disengaged, move the exterior end of the shaft towards the back of the car, clear the suspension and pull the whole shaft outwards. Take care not to crack the sound insulation like I did though. Whoops.

You've now got the shaft free, here comes the fun part, disengaging the cv joint from the shaft. Cut both the old clips off and rip off the remains of the cv boot. Make sure you've got cardboard down or you're going to get grease *everywhere*.

To cheat at removing the cv joint without having to beat the crap out of it, place the shaft on a flat surface, take the old hub bolt and start winding it back in.

You'll come to a point where the bolt is touching the end of the shaft, keep winding the bolt in and it'll force the shaft out of the cv joint about a centimeter. This is small enough that you can just wiggle the remainder of the shaft out of the joint with minimal fuss.

Clean up the end of the shaft, and pull the spring clip, and spacers off the shaft, and replace them with the new parts that came in the kit. Pay careful attention to which way around things are when you take them off!

Cleaned up:

Replacement bits left, old bits right:

This is it, you're halfway through the job with all the hard bits done now.

Carefully put the new cv boot over the shaft, and secure it with the supplied clip.

You need to rinse out the machining oil off the joint from when it was new, carb/brake cleaner is especially good at this. When it's dry, pack it with CV grease that is either supplied in the kit or you've bought.

Slide the new cv joint onto the end of the shaft and give it a good thump to get it to engage, slide it all the way home and make sure it locks in place.

Secure the outside edge of the boot to the CV joint with the supplied clip.

At this point, it's a case of reassembly is the reverse of disassembly (Good old haynes.)

Slide the shaft back under the car, engage it with the wheel hub and put the new bolt in finger tight. Re-engage the gearbox end and put the six splined bolts back in - there's a guide on this forum somewhere that gives you the correct torques.

Torque up the centre bolt - I dont know the exact torque here - I just did mine up with a 2 foot breaker bar as tight as I could. I'll see if I can find the correct torque somewhere - you need your assistant to break heavily for you here to give you something to torque against!

At this point it's just a case of putting the undertray back on, the wheel back on and taking it for a test drive!

Make sure you've not got any CV grease on the brake disk mind!

Nice guide.......

Just out of interest in case I ever have to. How would you go about getting the CV boot on/off the other end of the drivershaft (the end you did not touch).

Would it be easiest to take the CV joint you took off and sliding everything along. Or to buy one of those CV fitting things shaped like a cone or is there an easier method.

what is it with people deleting pictures! its a shame as guides like this are very informative but they need the visuals. makes it pretty pointless :(