Rear axle rebuild/replacement?

[maupineda]

Stumbled upon this while repacking my inner CVs with the gkn boot kit and it is great news that the Porsche CVs Are a direct fit for the inners, but unless anyone has found a solution for the outers I am questioning what the purpose of just replacing one side of the axle is when obviously the outer do develop play over a lifespan And essentially, you’re just rebuilding half of the axle.

Now after doing this job, I was seriously, considering ordering the inners to do at a waiter time, but if there is no way to rebuild the outer joints, I’m having a hard time justifying doing all the work to only improve the axle maybe 50% instead of a full refresh because greasing alone is not a rebuild. It is just a “repack” which obviously does not reduce any play in the joint it just fills it with grease.

Curious, if anyone can try in if they found a solution to date?

Currently axles are almost $1000 each side from BMW for brand new, which at that price you might as well go aftermarket to some upgraded option like driveshaft shop.

It would just makes sense if your inners have play and outers are fine, that saves you from spending 1000 bucks for a new axle shaft when only one side is bad. If the outers are play free you just repack to make them last longer. If you service the shafts let’s say every 50-60k miles I don’t see why you would need to ever change or rebuild them. Issue with the inners is that the exhaust runs close to them degrading the grease and over time that causes them to develop play.

it makes sense to repack only if you have no play, and to rebuild the inners if those are the bad ones but outers are fine.

lucky e46 m3 owners that only the driver side is exposed to hot exhaust, us Z4 owners have that on bot sides.