Bah Posted November 5, 2009 Report Share Posted November 5, 2009 very true, but with the lifetime warranty, i feel the risk is manageable, though it will be a PITA to swap out a bum set. FWIW, as a patron of the brick and mortar stores for 15 years, quality has come a long way in this time, i've experienced more trouble with being sold the wrong part than with getting a defective part. customer service has come a long way as well, i was given a wrong battery and bad advice/attitude last year and after writing a letter via the Advance Auto website, the district manager phoned me, said that the employee was canned and gave me a free oil change via a $60 store credit for 6qt M1 synthetic + M1 filter. Hola fellow walgreens employee =p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JordanW Posted November 5, 2009 Report Share Posted November 5, 2009 very true, but with the lifetime warranty, i feel the risk is manageable, though it will be a PITA to swap out a bum set. FWIW, as a patron of the brick and mortar stores for 15 years, quality has come a long way in this time, i've experienced more trouble with being sold the wrong part than with getting a defective part. customer service has come a long way as well, i was given a wrong battery and bad advice/attitude last year and after writing a letter via the Advance Auto website, the district manager phoned me, said that the employee was canned and gave me a free oil change via a $60 store credit for 6qt M1 synthetic + M1 filter. If you're looking for new axles on the cheap, go back to your "friends" at Advance, pick up their "LTW" GSP Chinese NEW axles. $60 Drivers side $70 pass side. Reuse the 36MM nuts you have on their now though. The upside to sourcing cheap parts locally is that its local and there isn't any shipping fees, your downtime is usually less if there is an issue. O'Rielly's does reman and so does NAPA. I am never completely sold on a "lifetime warranty". It seems for ANYTHING, parts, tools, what have you, its more over an excuse to offer a medicore product, and if it should fail, they'll just replace it with another medicore product. Do ya buy the lifetime warranty tool from Sears, Harbor Frieght, Matco, Snap-on? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raven_850 Posted November 6, 2009 Report Share Posted November 6, 2009 very true, but with the lifetime warranty, i feel the risk is manageable, though it will be a PITA to swap out a bum set. FWIW, as a patron of the brick and mortar stores for 15 years, quality has come a long way in this time, i've experienced more trouble with being sold the wrong part than with getting a defective part. customer service has come a long way as well, i was given a wrong battery and bad advice/attitude last year and after writing a letter via the Advance Auto website, the district manager phoned me, said that the employee was canned and gave me a free oil change via a $60 store credit for 6qt M1 synthetic + M1 filter. I dont buy anything with a lifetime warranty from autozone---->junk. If you have to replace it half a dozen times is it really worth the few bucks you save? Not to me. My time is money. Just my $.02. NAPA, OReilly and Advance (in that order) have all been very good local sources of parts over the years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lcc014 Posted November 6, 2009 Report Share Posted November 6, 2009 I bought mine (driver side) from Axles.com. Very good service and included a UPS label for sending the old axle back to them. No core charge if the old axle is sent back within a period of time. $150 for either driver or passenger side. Most important, it fitted perfectly without any hassle as some members found. Ching-Ho Cheng Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PHLY50 Posted November 6, 2009 Report Share Posted November 6, 2009 Raxles is good. Would strongly advise you stay away from the Chinese-made axles. Bought a set from FCP Groton. A year later, the boots were completely disintegrated. Yes I agree, stay away from the FCP axles - the boots on mine were split only after 17,000klm. Ended up refitting the original axles which I had rebuilt by a CV specialist locally. Cost was only a little more than I paid for the cheapo chinese ones from FCP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrmontebuilder Posted November 7, 2009 Report Share Posted November 7, 2009 I worked at Carquest for 13 years on and off first as a driver and then as counterman, and I can tell you from personal experience A1/Cardone quality is very spotty to say the least. Many "rebuilt" items are a test and spray and pray - no kidding. We were getting our axles at the end of my time there (2002) from a called Driveline Remanufactures I believe and they were decent but they too had issues with vibration on occasion though, most times were a crappy core that was rebuilt with heavy corrosion. One thing that was great was if we ordered and odd ball axle for something 9 times out 0f 10 it was a brand new in the reman box because they had no core to rebuild. The biggest thing to look for is a heavily pitted shaft as it almost guaranteed to be a vibrating mess. On a side note there is NO lifetime warranty at Autozone now, the first one you get has a lifetime warranty UNTIL it fails and is replaced and the new one has either a 90 day or 1 year warranty depending on the item, I had a MAF replaced at 3 months old that had a 1 year warranty and lost 6 months of warranty because of their defective part. Needless to say AZ is not getting any more of my money unless they are a whole lot cheaper or the only one who has a part. All the chain stores are very bad these days, I needed a timing chain for a 91 Caprice 5.0l a few months back and none of the locals had it AZ, Advance or Pep Boys, this is a small block chevy engine, I guess I had the only one left?? Yet all 3 stocked a minimum of 3 timing gasket sets for the same vehicle/engine, makes sense to someone I guess... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
z31jaime Posted November 7, 2009 Report Share Posted November 7, 2009 i went autozone with mine. our local autozone is awesome with replacing parts. Advanced kinda sucks. every time i try to exchange something its a PITA (got lifetime pads and when i went to get new ones the said "only against manufactures defects, yours are just worn u need to buy new ones"). i get lifetime pads and replace whenever needed for free from autozone. what i did was....buy a NEW cv for $70. kept my old one. went back about a month later and took my OEM one in and exchanged it for another CV. so now i have a new one on the car, and a New one in the box should this one go out. and to the people complaining on the quality of the Autozone parts..... I will say some things i will never buy @ autozone. most parts i have gotten have worked well and lasted a reasonable amount of time. if my cv's last me a year or 2, thats fine with me ill change em again FREE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gr8gatzby Posted November 7, 2009 Author Report Share Posted November 7, 2009 I bought a Hayne's manual on the 850 but it didn't mention much detail in swapping out the axle shafts...I thought i needed a 36mm socket...is this correct...not stated in the book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erikv11 Posted November 7, 2009 Report Share Posted November 7, 2009 36 mm from the factory. I borrowed the "axle nut socket kit" from O-reilly's, there was a 36 mm in there. I highly recommend a 5/8 chisel for gentle trouble-free release of the driver's side axle from the trans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lcc014 Posted November 8, 2009 Report Share Posted November 8, 2009 36 mm from the factory. I borrowed the "axle nut socket kit" from O-reilly's, there was a 36 mm in there. I highly recommend a 5/8 chisel for gentle trouble-free release of the driver's side axle from the trans. Yes, 5/8 chisel to release the driver side axle from tranny. However, make sure that you buy the 12 inches in length not 6 inches. 6 inches just barely exposed the head of the chisel for you to hit with the hammer (I used 3 lbs hammer). I should have bought the 12 inches that would make the separation of axle from tranny a lot easier !! Ching-Ho Cheng Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbon Posted November 9, 2009 Report Share Posted November 9, 2009 FWIW, Volvo specifies to use new axle nuts... well, on my car anyway (97 850). I figured it might be best to go by that, but more knowledgeable guys probably wouldn't care. Raxles axles come with new 36mm axle nuts (mine also came with a pair of nitrile gloves, a 'paper' shop towel, and best of all, a bright blue 'swissarmy-type' knife!!). Oh, also, PM'd you, gr8gatzby. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lcc014 Posted November 9, 2009 Report Share Posted November 9, 2009 FWIW, Volvo specifies to use new axle nuts... well, on my car anyway (97 850). I figured it might be best to go by that, but more knowledgeable guys probably wouldn't care. Raxles axles come with new 36mm axle nuts (mine also came with a pair of nitrile gloves, a 'paper' shop towel, and best of all, a bright blue 'swissarmy-type' knife!!). Oh, also, PM'd you, gr8gatzby. I did not get any nitrite gloves nor shop towel. I only got the swissarmy knife and a color google map to show me where to return the old axle to nearby UPS store. :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gr8gatzby Posted November 9, 2009 Author Report Share Posted November 9, 2009 ok. you sons of motherless goats sufficiently scared the bajeezus outta me and I'm, yet again, going the Raxles route. That dude will think I'm crazy. I ordered them Wednesday morning, cancelled them that same afternoon once I saw the Autozone price difference, and now I'll be ordering them again. Thanks jackholes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
64pvolvo1800 Posted November 9, 2009 Report Share Posted November 9, 2009 ok. you sons of motherless goats sufficiently scared the bajeezus outta me and I'm, yet again, going the Raxles route. That dude will think I'm crazy. I ordered them Wednesday morning, cancelled them that same afternoon once I saw the Autozone price difference, and now I'll be ordering them again. Thanks jackholes. I would jack your price up just for shits and giggles if I was Raxles :lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbon Posted November 9, 2009 Report Share Posted November 9, 2009 ok. you sons of motherless goats sufficiently scared the bajeezus outta me and I'm, yet again, going the Raxles route. That dude will think I'm crazy. I ordered them Wednesday morning, cancelled them that same afternoon once I saw the Autozone price difference, and now I'll be ordering them again. Thanks jackholes. I sent you a PM this morning, then inadvertently erased the conversation from my profile. I hope you got the PM, it was kinda urgent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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