COngradulations on the new car,

In general, axle boot replacement is not an option. Mercedes axles are pressed together and require special service tools. For a while, people that caught them early were rebooting them(sending them out ??).
Used is an option, there you want a clean looking one with out lots of rust around the boot/axle joint. All the old boots will have some cracking. I don't know of any sources.. someone posted about a junkyard in lower Tennessee and they charged $80.

New use to be a great option until about 3 months ago and prices have gone way up(qouted about $400 in November). Rebuilt axles go from $99-250 with you returning your old axle. Beck and Arnley use to sell lifetime warrentee ones for about $125(remanufactured in Spring Hill Tn at TRW). I think Advance Autoparts sells B&A parts, but they were not warehousing the MB axles 2 years ago. We did get the part number and find another B&A source, that couldn't find mercedes listed, but could order our part number(funny how life works@!).

Replace the differential seal on the side while you have the axle out. It's like a GM, you have to pull c-clip in the diff holding the axle in place. It's not hard and it take me about 2hrs, but ppl report 4-6 is more common.

Michael

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Michael McGuire
83 300d
01 vw A4 TDI
66 Chevy Corsa
68 GMC V6 w/oD
86 300E