Evening guys and girls. Took my wheels off today to check the pads and discs, and worryingly found a leak around the L/H front wheel area. The pictures below show where the oil/fluid has tracked down, but I can't seem to find where it's coming from?! Not sure what fluid it is...seems too 'clean' to be engine oil, but that's low (although I've not checked the oil level for a fair while so not sure if it's suddenly dropped?!). As you can see in the second picture, whatever this fluid is has sprayed outwards from the inside of the rim as I've driven, so I seem to have lost a substantial amount of it, whatever it is...

Any help would be much appreciated, even if it's just to hazard a guess at what the problem might be, before I take it to a garage.

Thanks in advance,

Andy

Split CV boot

Split CV boot

Sorry, I'm a complete numpty when it comes to cars...I don't know what/where the CV boot is! What is the fluid leaking from that/is it a big job to sort?!

Many thanks!

Edited 23 March, 201214 yr by andypandy85

The outer cv joint in on the end of the driveshaft where it goes into the hub. The gaiter is a corrugated rubber boot that covers the joint. It is packed full grease, when the rubber splits and your driving the grease goes everywhere. When it happened on my old car it went onto the brake disc, which made life interesting.

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That far in I would say the rack is leaking, is the fluid level low?

it could be either power steering fluid the pump and res' are just above or could be diesel in which case it may the tandem pump leaking this is on the right hand side of the cyl'head and has several pipes to it check to see if the outer cover lower edge is damp with fuel

I'd say it's the rack itself leaking from the end of the boot.

These all sounds like major/expensive jobs...the fluid is fairly runny, more like oil than grease if this helps diagnose it?

Either which way you are going to need to sort it and probably not yourself, get it done by someone you trust or it could cost you more

Does the fluid have any colour to it?

Zooming on on the first picture it does look like it's coming out from the gaiter on the steering rack.

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And looking at the second photo, the gaiter looks distended. I had a major power steering fluid leak once on an Audi 100. There was no outward sign of where the fluid was disappearing to but once the car was up on a ramp it was clear that the steering rack gaitors (I think there were two but I could be wrong) were full of the 'missing' fluid.

Thanks for all the help guys. Having driven it today, felt how **** the steering is and subsequently found next to nothing in the power steering fluid reservoir, it'll be going in the garage this week. What kind of price would you estimate I'll be looking at?!

Once again, many thanks!

New racks aren't cheap, you can get pattern ones just make sure you get the right type as there are two different ones depending on if you have a single or twin pick up for the hall sensor.