I am pretty sure my car's original(?) CV joints have excess wear. Take a look.

Cage wear.

Inner flange wear.

Any comments? I think these are toast.

What do people like for replacement joints?

Is there grooves where the wear is? No pitting on the balls. If not assemble them with no grease and feel for slack. Some slack is ok, just so it is not sloppy.

In my opinion those are shot. Get new so you can sleep at night.

Run your finger along the groove, if you feel divots they're done.
Those aren't the worse I've seen, if low budget you might get a few more years out of them, but cleaning and packing CV's is a messy job. I'd rather replace and be done with it.
Don't forget the boots while you're at it.

This is one case where Feeling Groovy is not a good thing....

I agree.
those are worn... but not completely worn out
you can reverse them, switch them around and wear in a different pattern to extend the life.


the available modified VW joints have not held up as long as stock joints in my experience....

so using these on the street in a mild application... especially if they are moved around... would be fine for a few years. I've put the VW joints onto my race car and had more wear in 2 years... than stock joints wore in 5

if the wear spots are actual divots not just shiny they are done. Check the balls also. as was mentioned if they are pitted ..toast. The problem is once worn the CV can hyper-extend and all of the sudden you have a clunking coming from the engine bay as the .5 shafts are now striking the drive flange under acceleration.

Thanks, guys. I can definitely feel the grooves and pits, so would rather not reuse these.

Are replacement 914 CV joints unobtanium?

You can buy complete axles from Porsche for a king's ransom. You can also buy just cv joints but what you will get are 914/6 joints with the wrong spline count for your axles.

Reuse them and see ,seen a lot worse ,how they are cleaned and repacked has served me well, re-indexing is ok but to me it is a short time solution.
Any chipping on the races or blue "spots" are a warning ,never seen the balls peel of hardening but seems it could happen ?,so keep your balls good .