While driving my 89 Olds 98 to my Uncle's for Thanksgiving the outer cv joint on the passenger side blew up. I just turned into the driveway and the car stopped and was makeing a grinding/ratcheting sound. when I got out of the car the noise sound like it was coming from behind the front passenger tire. When I looked behind the tire I can see the boot opened up and parts of the cv joint laying on the ground. There was no warning or symptoms. On the drive there it did feel something in the wheel but I'm not sure if it was from the road or not. I live in Nothern MN and the roads were not the best. I thought it might have been some snow and ice I was hitting. While the engine is running and I put it into neutral or park the sound continues and doesn't stop. If I shut the car off and restart it with it in park or neutral there is not sound untill I try to put it into a drive gear, and when I try to put it back in to neutral or park while it is still running the sound continues. I am curious to why the sound continues even after I shift into park or reverse. One other concern of mine is the car will roll no matter what gear it is in. When it stopped going up the hill I put it into park but it rolled down the hill backwards. When it was in the yard we pushed it by hand, and when we loaded it up on the trailer to haul it home we used a winch. The car rolled right up onto the trailer. When I got it on the trailer I went to put it not park thinking it was in neutral when we winched it onto trailer. It already was in park and wanted to roll off the trailer as if it was in neutral. Would not haveing an axle connected on one side allow the car to still roll while in park or is there something wrong with my transmission also.

 

That's normal behavior with a typical differential. If one side is completely disconnected, like when the CV joint is blown, it will free wheel. When you engage the transmission, you apply some power to the gears, and they can have some momentum to keep going even after you shift out of gear. The parking pawl engages ahead of the differential. That just locks the ring gear, allowing the two side gears to turn freely. You can see this action on a car with both sides still connected. Jack up the drive end so both tires are off the ground, and turn one tire. The other tire will turn in the opposite direction. If you have a clutch based limited slip differential, there will be some preload, but if you overcome that, the same thing will happen.

The usual clue to a CV joint starting to fail on a FWD car is you start hearing rattling or grinding while making sharp turns.