Rear Differential Completely Destroyed at 25,000 kilometers.

He is a better engineer than he is a man. That should tell you something.

 

Whoa.

That big of a jerk?

 

Alright I have to say it... I tried not to be against the OP but, there are somethings that are bothering me with the photos provided.

Why is there so much rust on a 1-2 winter vehicle? I have lived in vary salt happy places and I have never seen so much rust in a year or two of winters. Can anyone decode the alpha-numeric code on the pinion gear?

The background of this photo looks like "my buddies garage" not a photo taken at a dealership (look at all that rubbish). OP maybe the dealer's tech invited you in to show you the damage and this is when you took the photos?

 

That isn't really that much rust for bare metal. I have seen more rust on rotors during summer in Southern California. Also, my Taco has never even seen snow and I have rust underneath mine. As to the cleanliness of the shop, I have no clue, but I've seen some messy shops and dealerships. Nothing really seems out of the ordinary to me.

 

Correct, the 3rd member comes fully assembled, no adjustment required. They remove the old one, put the new one in, fill with fluid, and you are good to go. I think the dealer told me it took them less than an hour to do.

 

Exactly

Not sure why @Toyko Joe is calling @2016LimitedTaco a liar

 

Like I mentioned previously , the quality of off shore mfgd ring & pinions is just horrible as if late . its not just Toyota its all makes & models of axles

I've heard of ring & pinion failures on aftermarket gear sets on GM , Ford and Chrysler . The ring & pinion in my Drag race car howls and that's the 2nd set of gears

 

Nothing that @2016LimitedTaco has posted states that the Toyota technician showed the damage and that is where the photos came from. If he knew the rear end was blown maybe he disassembled the 3rd member before Toyota did and take the pictures? I just don't know, I was honestly just looking for further clarification. If someone could verify the pinion code so that a warning could be sent out to trucks of similar build dates of the possible failure. My assumption is that pinions and rings are built in batches so maybe there was a contaminate in the metal causing the failure, and others will fail. Sorry for trying to get more information to understand what is going on and trying to help others.

 

Wow just from the first few pages there are some dick weeds and trolls here... That sucks man, Hopefully they are going to fix it for you. Maybe just had some bad parts. (Havent read through all 9 pages) it can happen on any vehicle. Parts sometimes are flawed when they go into a vehicle. People act like they have never bought a dead bulb, or a TV that went bad or a tire that went bad.. That sucks that it has happened and hopefully get fixed soon.

 

Toyota's Tijuana Plant Pumps Out Tacomas

http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2016/09/toyotas-tijuana-plant-pumps-out-tacomas.html

 

but we have no evidence that the howling diff leads to differential failure

 

that's units sold. How many are they making?

 

I'm not trying to excuse them for the vehicle's failure, but you probably should be made aware of the fact that exploding differentials isn't something new to the 2016+ models. There are plenty of instances of 2005-2015 models having this exact failure happen. These failures were apparently limited to the TRD OFFROAD models, which had some smaller and weaker parts in them than SR5/Sport.

So while it does suck, this isn't something NEW to hold against the current model.

Get it fixed and move on.

 

There is also a problem on 4runner front differentials...
They just replaced my buddies at 15K...
So they must have changed something there is no reason for this.....
The design is 12 years old so it must be a run of bad parts...

 

This says 100,000 annually....

http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2016/09/toyotas-tijuana-plant-pumps-out-tacomas.html

 

Out of that plant...
Given Tacoma having a very low number of days on the sales lot I would say its pretty close to the 255,000 estimated manufacturing rate I gave... but that is just my assumption.

 

Nope. You are incorrect. I wasn't even at the dealership and to be honest I was blown away they accepted my request to send pics but I was thinking it was a good CYA for me to have them. I have no idea why you would accuse me of falsifying this thread. I knew it was the rear end because there is nothing else it could of been. Driveshaft turns, loud grinding and no wheel spin. Pretty simple. I would never be dumb enough to "look" as they would need just one little tiny excuse to reject the claim.

 

Toyota Service sent you those pictures! Good job for requesting them. It seems as though they are trying to fix your truck and get you back out on the road.

 

***UPDATE***
Truck is DONE. It's getting detailed and having the undercoating touched up and in the meantime I have a 2017 Rav4 Hybrid as a loaner. Another long story but I am also the proud (<-- sarcasm) owner of a VW Diesel and I'm caught up in dieselgate so we were considering the Rav4 as replacement after the buyback. All's well that ends well but I haven't drove the truck yet yet. I will update tomorrow or the next day when the detailing is done and I pick it up. First thing I'm doing is driving it all the way home on the highway in 4lo and doing donuts!