I am a Polaris certified mechanic at a dealership and I will say that about $100-150 is pretty common. Most dealerships charge around $45 to $60 an hour shop labor rate. It normally takes me around 2 hrs. for CV boots. Money saving tips: CLEAN YOUR ATV! If it takes me a 1/2 hr to clean all the mud, turned cement, from your last outing, it just upped your bill $25. Buy a Polaris service manual. It is pretty thorough if you are mechanically inclined. HTH

 

Charlie,
I said in my previous post that if the boot is torn and the CV is contaminated, I would also disasseble the hub. As far as the big clamp goes, you just have to be patient while lining it up in the groove.

If I were just trail riding and fishing line or barbed wire cut a boot, and no mud or dirt got in, I would just replace the boot as I explained. If I did not know when or where the boot ripped, I would tear it all the way down and clean it just in case.

Greg

 

swac1 You got off cheap. I ripped my boot on a scrambler 400 Didn't have time to fix, took it to a dealer walked away with a bill over $400.00. He said my cv shaft was bent. I gave him no authorization to replace it. Guess what... I will never take it back to a dealer again DIRTY HARRY

 

On a final note on this boot change, I'm glad I had a Polaris mechanic do it. Them cv joints are pretty expensive and can I say delicate? Meaning delicate in regards to dirt and mud. I have installed a boot protector, a strap of iron, 1/8" thick which protects against the occasional stick or small flying rock. If you take a look at where the boot is vulnerable from the front of the machine, you can place a protector of some sort to prevent a torn boot. Don't try plastic or soft aluminum, remember your riding style and what you occasionally drive thru. I want my quad to last, not spend more days getting parts that could have been protected!

 

If the grease hasn't been contaminated with dirt, and the area around the boot is generally clean, I can replace a front CV boot in 30min. Done a bunch. There are a few different ways. The Polaris way in the manual is probaly the best because you can get at all the parts, depending what you have to do. It's possible to change the boot and clean out the CV joint and put in fresh grease without taking apart the hub, and only pulling the shaft. The problems is that when you only pull the shaft, if the CV joint or shaft moves even slightly, you will have hard time getting them lined back up and can turn a 30 min job into much much longer.

The flat rate manual for Polaris says 1.5h for a boot change. That's reasonable for a shop, if they do it right. That means cleaning everything before they tear it apart, cleaning out the old grease, and putting in all fresh grease. Remember that you are more careful (at least you should be) to do it right when working on someone elses machines representing a manufacture or dealer.

 

Hey guys, here’s a little tip to save you some $. You don’t need a special pliers to reinstall the boot clamps on the SP rear CVs. A needle nose vise-grip works just fine. In fact, if you plan to do more than a few of these jobs you could file or grind the tips of the pliers to work even better. The rear clamps are different than the front “pinch” clamps though. It looks to me like you could use a “nipper” type pliers on the pinch clamps, as long as you had a screwdriver blade or something else in the jaws near the hinge to prevent the pinched part of the clamp from expanding outward. If you’ve never seen either of these types of clamps you’ll have no idea what I’m talking about 

Replacing a rear inner CV boot on an SP is a 30-45 minute job tops, and I did mine without the benefit of a manual. You need to get most of the grease out of the way to find the circlips so you might as well clean it all out and replace the grease while you’re at it. I really can’t imagine anyone putting it back together with even questionably contaminated grease and feeling like they’ve accomplished anything.