How much does a CV joint replacement cost?
A CV joint replacement in the UK typically costs £250 to £500 fitted per side on a mainstream car, with Bumper quoting £250 to £900 once premium and larger cars are included. A front driveshaft runs £250 to £400 and a rear one £300 to £500 or more. But a CV boot replaced before the joint is contaminated is only £50 to £140, and that is the same fault caught earlier. The MOT grades the boot twice: severely deteriorated is a Minor, so you pass with it recorded, while a boot missing, split or insecure so it no longer keeps dirt out is a Major and a fail. That ladder is a free written warning, usually a year or more ahead of the expensive repair. Check your MOT history on GOV.UK, and if a CV boot has been mentioned, book it while it is still the cheap job.
A clicking noise on full lock is one of the few car faults that diagnoses itself. What it does not tell you is the price, and the published figures are all over the place: one UK guide puts a CV joint replacement at £150 to £280 on a small hatchback, another quotes £250 to £900. Both are right. They are describing different jobs on different cars, and the gap between the cheapest version and the dearest is decided months before you hear the first click, by a small rubber boot that your MOT has almost certainly already commented on. This guide sets out what each version of the job costs in the UK, how to work out which one you are facing, and why the MOT gives you the cheap option in writing before it gives you the expensive one.
How much does a CV joint replacement cost?
A CV joint replacement in the UK typically costs £250 to £500 fitted per side on a mainstream car. Bumper quotes a full range of £250 to £900 once larger and premium cars are included, and puts a CV boot replacement on its own at £50 to £140. Its separate driveshaft guide gives a UK average of £250 to £500, split as £250 to £400 for a front shaft and £300 to £500 or more for a rear one. A second UK guide, AutoHit, quotes tighter tiers of £150 to £280 on a small front wheel drive hatchback, £180 to £320 on a family hatchback or saloon, and £250 to £450 on a premium badge.
| What you are having done | Typical total cost | What you are paying for |
|---|---|---|
| CV boot kit, joint still good | £50 to £140 | Boot, clips and fresh grease, joint cleaned and repacked |
| Front driveshaft, small hatchback | £150 to £280 | AutoHit's tier for a common front wheel drive car |
| Front driveshaft, family car | £250 to £400 | Bumper's front shaft range, parts and labour |
| Rear driveshaft | £300 to £500 or more | Rear wheel drive or four wheel drive layouts |
| Premium badge | £400 to £600 | Bumper's Audi and BMW range |
| Performance or luxury | £400 to £2,000 | Mercedes, Lexus and Alfa £400 to £900, Porsche £1,500 to £2,000 |
Notice how far apart the first row and the last are. That is not the same job getting more expensive. It is a different job, and which one you get is largely your choice, made at the point the boot splits rather than at the point the joint starts clicking.
Why one guide says £150 and another says £900
Three things move the number, and only one of them is the badge on the bonnet.
Which part is actually failed. A CV joint lives inside a sealed rubber boot packed with grease. If you catch a split boot while the joint underneath is still clean, the repair is a boot kit, a clean and a repack, which is the £50 to £140 job. Once grit has been in there for a few months the joint is scrap, and you are into a joint or a whole shaft at four to six times the price. Same car, same corner, same garage.
Which corner it is. A front driveshaft on a front wheel drive car is the commonest and cheapest version. Rear shafts, and the shafts on four wheel drive cars, sit behind more suspension and cost more in hours, which is why Bumper's rear figure starts where the front figure ends.
Whether the garage quotes a joint or a complete shaft. Many workshops will not fit an individual joint to an old shaft at all. AutoHit makes the reason plain, noting that a remanufactured or pattern complete driveshaft is only marginally more expensive than the boot kit route once you account for the work. Pressing a joint off a shaft that has spent eight British winters in road salt can swallow an hour of paid labour with no guarantee at the end, so a complete shaft is often both quicker and safer. If a quote looks high, ask which of the two you have been quoted, because you cannot compare two garages until you know they are pricing the same repair.
A fourth factor is simply the hourly rate. Most independents charge £60 to £100 an hour, franchised dealers considerably more, and on a job where labour is a large slice of the bill that difference shows up quickly. Our guide to main dealer versus independent garage covers when the premium is worth paying.
What a CV joint actually does
CV stands for constant velocity. The joint sits at each end of a driveshaft and has one job that sounds simple and is not: deliver engine torque to a wheel that is simultaneously steering and moving up and down over bumps, without the wheel speeding up and slowing down through every degree of the turn. An ordinary universal joint cannot do that. It would make the wheel surge, which you would feel through the steering on every corner.
The outer joint, nearest the wheel, takes the steering angle and does the hardest work. The inner joint, nearest the gearbox, mostly absorbs suspension travel and plunges in and out as the wheel rises and falls. Both are steel balls running in hardened races, both need to be packed in grease, and both are useless the moment that grease is contaminated. Everything about the cost of this repair comes back to the boot that keeps the grease in and the grit out.
The clicking on full lock, and how to be sure
A rhythmic clicking or knocking that appears only on tight, slow turns, the kind you hear reversing out of a parking space with the wheel on full lock, is close to a definitive symptom of a worn outer CV joint. Bumper also lists a rumble or clicking that rises with speed when turning, a low frequency wobble through the steering wheel on long sweeping bends, and grease flung onto the boot or nearby suspension.
There is a free test that takes two minutes. Find an empty car park, wind the steering to full lock and drive a slow circle, then repeat it in the other direction. A worn outer joint clicks in time with wheel rotation, and it usually clicks on one lock far louder than the other, which tells you which side. Then look. Get the wheels on full lock, kneel down and look at the pleated rubber boot behind the wheel. A split boot throws grease outward, so you are looking for a dark greasy fan across the inside of the wheel arch, the suspension arm or the shield. That grease trail is the cheapest diagnostic in motoring, and finding it before the clicking starts is worth several hundred pounds.
Be careful not to blame the CV joint for everything. A hum or drone that changes as you weave gently at 40mph is far more likely to be a wheel bearing. A vibration that arrives at a particular speed and stays there points at wheels or tyres, which why is my steering wheel shaking works through. Our guide to why is my car making a knocking noise has a thirty second test that separates engine noises from wheel noises before you pay anyone to look.
The MOT grades the boot twice, and that is your cheapest warning
This is the part almost every price guide leaves out, and it is the one that decides what you pay. Under section 6.1.7 of the DVSA inspection manual, the CV joint boot appears twice, with two different defect categories, and the joint itself appears separately.
| What the tester finds | Defect category | What that means for you |
|---|---|---|
| CV joint boot severely deteriorated | Minor | A pass, with the defect recorded on your certificate |
| CV joint boot missing, split or insecure so that it no longer prevents the ingress of dirt | Major | A fail |
| Transmission joint excessively worn | Major | A fail |
| Transmission so worn it is likely to fail | Dangerous | A fail, and it must not be driven away |
Read that as a ladder and the money makes sense. A perished but intact boot is a Minor, which means you drive away with a pass and a written note that the cheap repair is now due. Do it then and you are in the £50 to £140 row. Leave it, and the same boot splits, which is a Major and a fail, and by the time it has been open long enough to fail a test the joint under it is usually contaminated too, which puts you in the £250 to £900 row. Leave that and you reach Dangerous, where the car is not going anywhere under its own power.
So the test is handing you a priced decision, for free, typically a year or more before the expensive version arrives. Most drivers never act on it because a Minor or an advisory does not feel urgent. What is an MOT advisory explains why that is the most expensive habit in car ownership, and you can pull up every note on your own car, going back years, with the free GOV.UK MOT history check. It is worth doing right now. If a boot has been mentioned on your last two certificates, you have your answer.
One useful detail: a split boot found at the test is one of the items you may be able to have repaired at the same station for a partial retest, so ask about the retest terms before you take the car away. Our guides to what is checked in an MOT test and why did my car fail its MOT cover the rest of the inspection.
Inner joint or outer joint: they fail differently
The two ends of the shaft give you different symptoms, and knowing which you have makes the phone call to the garage much shorter.
The outer joint clicks. It takes the full steering angle, so it wears fastest and it complains on lock. This is the classic failure and the one most people mean when they say CV joint.
The inner joint usually does not click. It plunges rather than steers, so a worn one tends to produce a shudder or vibration under hard acceleration, especially pulling away or accelerating uphill, and a clunk as you take up drive. It is the less common failure but the more often misdiagnosed one, because a shudder on acceleration also fits a worn engine or gearbox mounting and a tired clutch.
Tell the garage which one you think it is, and say what you were doing when you heard it. It saves diagnostic time you would otherwise pay for, and questions to ask a garage before booking has the rest of what is worth asking up front.
How long does a CV joint last?
The joint itself is usually good for the life of the car. It is the boot that has a clock on it, and that clock is closer to ten years than to any mileage figure, because what kills a boot is age, ozone, road salt and heat cycling rather than distance. Rubber perishes on a car that barely moves just as readily as on one that does 20,000 miles a year.
That is why CV boots are a classic fault on cars from about eight years old, and why they fail in clusters, one corner then another, over a couple of years. If one has gone, look at the other three. Checking them is a thirty second job whenever the wheels are off, so it belongs on the list in how to prepare for your MOT and in your winter car checks, before the salt goes down.
Can you drive with a clicking CV joint?
For a short time, gently, and with a plan. A clicking outer joint is a worn part, not an immediate failure, and most last weeks or months of ordinary driving after they start to talk. The reason to book it rather than live with it is what failure looks like: a CV joint that finally lets go separates the driveshaft from the hub, so the car loses drive on the spot, usually mid manoeuvre, and the loose shaft can damage the boot, the hub and whatever it catches on the way round. Bumper's driveshaft guide puts it plainly, that driving with a bad driveshaft poses a safety risk and you should head to a garage as soon as you suspect a problem.
Two situations change the answer from soon to now. If the clicking has turned into a heavy clunk on take up, or if you can feel a shudder through the car under acceleration, the joint is close to the end. And if your MOT has recorded it as excessively worn, that is a Major defect, so the car is legally unroadworthy until it is fixed. Can I drive without an MOT covers where you stand, and if the noise is accompanied by a burning smell or a loss of drive, stop and get it recovered rather than nursing it home.
What else the garage may want to change at the same time
Some of this is fair, some is worth questioning, and the difference is whether the part has to come off anyway.
The other boot on the same shaft. Fair on a complete shaft, since both come as one. On a boot only repair, replacing both boots while the shaft is out is usually sensible rather than opportunistic.
The shaft nut and split pin. These are single use fasteners on most cars and cost a few pounds. Reusing them is poor practice.
A wheel bearing. Sometimes genuinely fair, because the hub often has to be disturbed to draw the shaft out, so the labour overlaps. But a bearing should be replaced because it is rough or has play, not because it is nearby. Ask which it is, and ask them to show you.
Track rod ends or lower arm ball joints. Also disturbed on many cars. Same rule applies. If they were not on your last MOT as an advisory, ask what changed.
A gearbox oil top up. Pulling an inner joint out of the gearbox loses some oil on many designs, so a top up is legitimate and small. A full gearbox oil change on the back of a driveshaft job is not automatic.
Our guide to signs a garage is overcharging you covers how to tell the two apart without accusing anyone of anything, and how to complain about a garage covers the route if a bill turns out badly.
How to keep the cost sensible
Act on the boot, not the click. Everything else on this page is a footnote to that one sentence. A £50 to £140 boot kit and a £250 to £900 driveshaft are the same fault caught at two different moments.
Read your own MOT history first. Two minutes on the GOV.UK checker tells you whether a tester has already flagged a boot, and when. That is free evidence, and it is the single best predictor of what this will cost you.
Get the quote itemised as parts and labour, and ask which repair it covers. Boot kit, joint alone, or complete shaft. Three garages quoting three different repairs is not three prices for the same thing.
Ask about part quality. A quality remanufactured or pattern driveshaft from a known supplier is a perfectly good repair and is what most independents fit. The cheapest unbranded shaft on the market is a false economy on a part that is holding your wheel on.
Do both sides only if both are worn. Unlike brakes, driveshafts do not need to be replaced in pairs. There is no balance argument. If only one clicks, do one.
Get more than one quote. On a job where the spread runs from £150 to £900, this is the highest return two phone calls you will make. How to choose a good garage and mobile mechanic versus garage are both short reads, and a driveshaft is usually workshop work rather than driveway work, because the car needs proper support and the hub nut needs serious torque.
Booking a CV joint or driveshaft replacement
This is a job where the quote depends on which repair you actually need, so it pays to ask more than one garage and to give them the same information. Put your postcode in and compare local garages, check their ratings and opening hours, and send a booking request in about a minute. Give them your registration, say which side clicks and on which lock, mention whether you can see grease thrown around the arch, and ask two things: whether they are quoting a boot kit, a joint or a complete driveshaft, and whether the price includes a new hub nut. You pay the garage directly, and there is no booking fee.
If your MOT is also close, booking the MOT and the work together saves a second trip, and car service costs in Birmingham gives you a feel for local labour rates before you pick up the phone. And if you have not checked yet, look up your MOT history first. If a CV boot is sitting on there as an advisory, book it this month while it is still the cheap job.
Key takeaways
- Expect £250 to £500 fitted per side on a mainstream car. Bumper's full range is £250 to £900, front driveshafts £250 to £400 and rear ones £300 to £500 or more.
- A CV boot replaced before the joint is contaminated is £50 to £140. It is the same fault at an earlier moment, and it is the whole cost story.
- The MOT grades the boot twice. Severely deteriorated is a Minor, so a pass with it recorded. Missing, split or insecure so it no longer keeps dirt out is a Major, so a fail.
- An excessively worn transmission joint is a Major, and one so worn it is likely to fail is Dangerous, which means it must not be driven away.
- Clicking on full lock is the outer joint. A shudder under hard acceleration is usually the inner one, and it is the more often misdiagnosed of the two.
- It is the rubber boot that has a clock on it, not the joint, and it is measured in years rather than miles. Boots fail in clusters on cars from about eight years old.
- Many garages quote a complete driveshaft rather than a joint, because pressing an old joint off a corroded shaft can cost an hour of labour with no guarantee. Ask which you are being quoted before comparing prices.
- Driveshafts do not need doing in pairs. There is no balance argument, so if only one side clicks, do one side.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to replace a CV joint in the UK?
Most drivers pay £250 to £500 fitted per side on a mainstream car. Bumper quotes a full range of £250 to £900 once premium and larger cars are included, and its driveshaft guide gives £250 to £400 for a front shaft and £300 to £500 or more for a rear one. A second UK guide quotes £150 to £280 on a small front wheel drive hatchback. The single biggest saving is catching it at the boot stage, which is £50 to £140.
Why is a CV boot so much cheaper than a CV joint?
Because they are the same fault at two different moments. The joint is a set of steel balls running in hardened races, packed in grease and sealed inside a ribbed rubber boot. While the boot is intact the joint is protected and lasts almost indefinitely. Once the boot splits, the grease is flung out and grit gets in, and the joint destroys itself over the following months. Replace the boot early and you are cleaning and repacking a good joint for £50 to £140. Wait for the clicking and the joint is scrap.
Is a CV joint boot an MOT failure?
It depends on the state of it. Under section 6.1.7 of the DVSA inspection manual, a constant velocity joint boot that is severely deteriorated is a Minor defect, which is a pass with the defect recorded on your certificate. A boot that is missing, split or insecure so that it no longer prevents the ingress of dirt is a Major defect, which is a fail. Separately, a transmission joint that is excessively worn is a Major, and a transmission so worn it is likely to fail is Dangerous.
Can I drive with a clicking CV joint?
Gently and briefly, with a booking made. A clicking outer joint is worn rather than broken and most last weeks or months of ordinary driving. The reason not to leave it is what failure looks like: the shaft separates from the hub, the car loses drive on the spot and the loose shaft can damage other parts. Stop sooner if the click becomes a heavy clunk on take up or you feel a shudder under acceleration. If an MOT has recorded the joint as excessively worn, that is a Major defect and the car is unroadworthy until it is fixed.
What does a failing CV joint sound like?
A rhythmic clicking or knocking that appears only on tight, slow turns, most obviously reversing out of a parking space with the wheel on full lock. It clicks in time with wheel rotation and is usually far louder on one lock than the other, which tells you which side is worn. Bumper also lists a rumble that rises with speed when turning, a low frequency wobble through the steering on sweeping bends, and grease thrown onto the boot or nearby suspension.
Should the garage replace the joint or the whole driveshaft?
Many workshops will only quote a complete shaft, and that is usually reasonable rather than a sales tactic. Pressing an old joint off a shaft that has spent years in road salt can take an hour of paid labour with no guarantee, and a remanufactured or pattern complete shaft costs little more once that work is counted. What matters is knowing which one you have been quoted, because you cannot compare two garages until you know they are pricing the same repair.
How long does a CV joint last?
The joint itself usually lasts the life of the car. It is the rubber boot that has a clock on it, and that clock runs in years rather than miles, because what kills a boot is age, ozone, road salt and heat cycling. That is why CV boots are a classic fault on cars from about eight years old and why they tend to fail in clusters, one corner then another over a couple of years. If one has gone, check the other three.
Do CV joints need replacing in pairs?
No. Unlike brake pads and discs, driveshafts have no balance or symmetry argument behind them, so there is no technical reason to do both sides. If one side clicks, do that side. It is worth having the other boots inspected at the same time, because they are the same age and the car is already in the air, but inspecting them is free and replacing a healthy shaft is not.