Is my CV joint going bad? What are the risks of not fixing it immediately?

Question

A while ago, my car started making clicking noises when I made sharp turns at low speed, at a rate clearly dependent on speed (about 5 clicks/sec at 5 km/h).

Today, as I was driving, I started hearing clicking noises while coasting downhill, though at a lower rate (relative to speed; about 5 clicks/sec at 50 km/h). This was only audible when taking my foot off the gas, not when accelerating or going at constant speed.

As I parked my car, there were repeated popping noises as I turned the steering wheel (car being stationary). The latter sounded similar to what I’d heard three years earlier, back then it was a bad CV joint. OTOH, back then I had noticed the steering wheel vibrating and the car starting to pull to one side unless I countersteered, neither of which I am experiencing now.

It’s a 2005 Audi A4 quattro.

Are these symptoms consistent with a bad CV joint? Are there any risks if I continue to drive until the my local repair shop has time to look at it?

Answer 1

Easiest ways to check if your problem is from CV joints are those:

1. Turn your wheel to the side and accelerate, if you hear clicking/clacking sounds it's the CV joint.
2. Go under the car and look for grease or damaged boot.
3. Turn your wheel to one side, go next to the tire hold the axle and shake it while listening for clicking sounds and checking for a lot of vertical movement in axle.

Now lets talk how dangerously it can be.

Sometimes you can get a lot of vibrations in your car which might result in loosen wheel nuts/bolts (happened to me) so one of your wheels might come off while driving.

Other thing that can happen is your axle might snap which will result in total loss of control over the vehicle, which might cause accident. For your axle to snap usually takes a lot of time and driving with bad cv joint, but it happens!