Off the top of my head, you’d have to have a shield that was below the suspension (else the shield itself might just cut the boot) and so that will add to unsprung weight which is something designers like to avoid.
And then you’d have to figure out how to project it far enough forward to catch the rock without ramming into the fenderwell any time the wheel was turned, and make it strong enough so that the rock doesn’t knock/bend the shield into the boot, or something else that’s rotating or moving.
There’s kind of a jungle of obstacles to debris under there anyway - the bottom end of the suspension, etc, so it takes a lucky shot to tear the boot in the first place. And those obstacles would get in the way of a shield. My guess would be cost and weight keep that from happening.
I think this problem is walking up to the line of “100% safe is unrealistic” that a lot of people in western societies have trouble with. We get very upset when an airplane crashes because we have a subconscious notion that airlines should be 100% accident free. That attitude tends to trickle down to the idea that cars, and computers, and coffeemakers should also never break, and if they break they suck, the company that made them sucks, and the country the company that made them is in probably sucks for not making the company make perfect products.
The reality is that nothing can be 100% anything, or as grandpa used to say, @#$@# happens. You design a system to minimize harm, but you can’t ever eliminate problems altogether, and one CV joint failure in 100,000 miles is such a minor blip on the repair radar that it’s not worth drawing any sort of conclusions at all about the design/quality of the vehicle.
Thermoplastic is the way to go for CV boots. They simply outperform the more traditional materials. In the end, nothing lasts forever. The outer boot takes a serious beating day in-out. Here’s a link to Dupont regarding their boots. Of course, they will toot their own horns but having dealt with displacement diaphragms made from thermoplastics vs viton, silicone, nitrile with fabric core, platinum cured silicone…there is no comparison to the longevity they provide.
Quiz question for Shadowfax…
I’ve also, during that time, owned cars from other manufacturers, probably before you were born.
Front-wheel-drive cars aren’t the only cars utilizing CV joints/CV axles. I know that because I worked at a dealership when they were introduced on non-FWD cars. In fact. I bought one brand new and drove it for ten + years.
You said you drive a GM, so I guess they don’t count.
VW (Bug), Mini, Porsche.
I know they get used on independent rear suspensions and short driveshafts or driveshafts where they were looking to cut some vibration (Cadillac), but didn’t want to get too into the weeds.
You are correct! Very good! I worked at a Volkswagen dealer when they introduced their “double jointed” rear axles to replace the former “swing axles” which were getting blamed for roll-over crashes (Ralph Nader, Corvair fiasco).
I never rolled my 64 Type One and purchased a brand new 71 Super Beetle (MacPherson strut front suspension that replaced the sturdy twin beam torsion bar front-end). CSA
My 6 year old (less than 100 k) Rabbit’s CV joint broke in half one time, on a camping trip. The car came to a screeching halt, one of the front axles laying in the dirt under the car. I routinely cleaned the joint & replaced the CV grease, but didn’t notice that the boot had split at some point. Had it towed into town, axle replaced, didn’t take much time, good as new. Surprisingly, given it was a German car and this happened in a small town, it was nearly a trouble free experience, and the repair bill was very reasonable, so overall just a minor annoyance.
I later diagnosed the problem as being my own fault. During routine maintenance I sprayed a little WD 40 on the boots whenever I changed the oil and filter. My idea was it would displace water and help prevent moisture from getting inside the boot. That turned out not to be a good idea. The WD 40 seemed to have weakened the rubber. After that discovery I changed my oil-change procedure to just cleaning off the CV boots with either plain water, or soap and water. Since then I’ve only had to change the two outer boots one time in 27 years on the Corolla.
My wife and I were gifted a 76 OLDSMOBILE Toronado in about 78. We owned and drove it for years and years.
It was great in snow! It was comfortable. That’s about it.
That 455ci engine gave it about 10 mpg and it had a small gas tank, too. I don’t believe the range was 250 miles. It never consumed/leaked one bit of oil! That engine baked some old school radiator hoses, though.
Two big heavy doors were very impractical and the trunk, for such a big tank, was an afterthought.
Did I mention it was good in snow? That 4700 pound FWD behemoth didn’t know when traction was poor. I think it melted ice to bare pavement as my wife drove along.
I don’t have a photo or link, I may be spelling torando wrong but I rember a commercial for for I believe for reece hitches with leveling bar’s hooked to good sized camper trailer with the rear wheel’s removed & car & trailer was setting level while moving around a parking lot,
There was a similar commercial for the Chevy Citation, which was a FWD vehicle, albeit a very bad-quality FWD vehicle. (Trust me… I know from personal experience…)
Is it possible that you are “rembering” the Ford Torino–which was a RWD car?
A relative of the family purchased a new Olds Toronado at the time. So I got to ride in it quite a few times. I’d guess late 60’s/early 70’s, not sure. It seemed roomy and had a really nice ride, and for some reason noticeably less of the being tossed about for the passengers when travelling neighborhood roads with a lot of sharp turns, especially when going uphill.
Wow, rude dudes. JoanneDerr has a point, if it was the axle that snapped, and not a CV joint. Honda put a dampener on many of their axles. In the “rust belt” (salted roads) the dampener causes the axles to rust in the middle section and the axle itself can snap.
It’s a great feature for cars in the other 26 states, but a flaw in the design for salted states. One does not normally see an axle fail without warning… usually from the boot slinging grease.
Yes, I remember the Olds Toronado from when they were revolutionary. My dad and I were hanging with Louie at his service station when a dude pulled in. We were experiencing one of our rare snows and he’d had chains put on, but could not figure why he had no traction.
They had it on the rack and were pondering. After a while, I suggested they move the chains to the front tires. Dad looked at me, a 16 yo, as if I’d said f***, but comprehension spread across Louie’s face. In 15 minutes the dude happily motored off. FWD was “new”.
A couple of years after the Toronado was introduced, I was walking to the grocery store after a snow storm. I saw a woman who had apparently thrown traction grit or salt under her Toronado’s rear tires, and she was perturbed that the front tires were still spinning, and that she couldn’t get out of her extremely tight parking space.
Trying to be helpful, I suggested that she throw the traction grit under the front tires, and her response was… Listen genius, the front ones are moving just fine. It’s the back tires that don’t want to move!
In response, I told her that–of course–she was correct, and that I was wrong.
Why argue with ignorant people who reject your attempts to help them?
