Approximately two years ago, my alternator failed. I was able to drive my car to them, and had them replace it. One of the charges on the bill ($75) was to remove and reinstall a cv half shaft. The mechanic claimed that this was necessary to get the alternator out and the new one in.
A few weeks ago, the replacement alternator failed. I decided to replace it myself.in no way was it necessary to remove any halfshaft. There was more than enough room to get the alternator around the shaft.
To make matters even more interesting, about three months ago, I had to replace the same halfshaft. I did the work myself. The halfshaft was completely rust-welded to the brake rotor. It required enormous effort on my part to separtate the two. Based on how well they stuck together, it would be very unlikely that the shaft had ever been removed since the car was built, over a decade ago!
Fyi: I replaced both half shafts within a few weeks of each other. Each one was just as rust welded as the other. I know for certain that the other one (not involved by Pep Boys) had not been removed since I bought the car, eight years ago!
Considering the fact that both half shafts were equally rust welded, equally difficult to remove, this is not logical. If a mechanic had removed one of the shafts, logically it would have been much less difficult to remove, than the one that had not been touched for years more (yes?)
0 comments