<strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Tahoma, Arial, Helv, Helvetica, Sans">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Tahoma, Arial, Helv, Helvetica, Sans">My concern isn't with the clamps... it's along the seam. IIRC, the screw-type boots (the favorite, from the sounds of it) have a screw at each fold along a tongue-in-groove seam that doesn't look like it would keep water out under negative pressure.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Tahoma, Arial, Helv, Helvetica, Sans">It's a valid concern about the water. Since I do most of my wheeling in Colorado, mud and water tend to be the exception rather than the rule.

With my split boots on I did ford a lot of streams, though, that were well above the hub. And like I said earlier ... one was one for about 50,000 total miles. When I pulled that split boot off (it had actually been ripped for awhile) the joint was still well greased and it looked to be in good shape.

If you do a whole lot of stream crossings (like deep crossings every single weekend) and/or a lot of mudding, then I can see how you could have a concern. I really think the seal is good enough, and with my experience I wouldn't hesitate, but I wouldn't want to take responsibility for someone else's CV joints.

That would make the popover boots a good choice, since they only take an extra hour or so to install. And if you're doing both inner and outer boots, I don't know that they take any more time to install 2 popover boots than two split boots.

A better mechanic could probably install either faster than me, BTW, as I'm not especially talented.