White elephant tool

[spiceredwagon]

I had to replace a cv boot on the Passat. The boot stretching tool that ECS Tuning sells looked like the best thing since sliced cheese so I purchased one. Well it would not stretch my boot enough to do the job. It did stretch the small end of the boot past its elastic limit so it is sloppy on the shaft. I cranked the compressor up till the air hose looked like a recently fed python, it still never stretched the boot enough. I called ECS tuning and was informed that there is no special boot to use with the tool, it should work with any boot. So I ended up replacing the boot the hard way.

[chittychittybangbang]

Thanks for the review. I've never tried it and was skeptical myself but it looks great. The way their ad put it, they were able to stretch the boot all the way a few times and it always came back. So if I'm hearing it correctly, the small end was never able to get big enough and it was left floppy? Are they going to accept a return? Have they had any other complaints?

[Keithuk]

Welcome to the forum.

I presume your talking about this. It may stretch it but will it return to its original shape? Well its just an expensive cheat that doesn't do the boot any good at all. How much more trouble is it to remove the CV of the shaft and do it properly? The choice is yours?

[chittychittybangbang]

The advertisement says they were able to do stretch the boot without damage but spiceredwagon says not. And if you can save 3 hours removing the axle with a special tool, why not? However, it looks like the tool doesn't work so I guess it's a moot point.

[spiceredwagon]

Thanks for the welcome Keith and a big thank you to those responsible for the excellent illustrated guides on this site. It is the device with the link in post #3. I saw it on this site when I was looking for directions to get the drive shaft out. That was after I had purchased one for $129.95. I did not ask ECS about a return because getting stuff up here to this frozen waste land involves a major headache in the form of customs & duties.

It was a EMPI CV boot kit that would not stretch enough. The small end of the boot never went back to its original size after attempting to stretch it. I spent at least 3 hours before the circlip let the joint off the shaft. I used some sched 40 pipe to make a jig for the hydraulic press. Using a dead blow hammer as shown in the Jetta Bentley manual never released it for me.