SOLVED backup squeaking, vibration on take off, etc.

I just wanted to post my experience, as I've seen a lot of posts about, squeaking while backing up, and/or vibration at low speeds, mostly at take off, and slow down to stop. I had these problems with my 2008 V6, 2WD, automatic SRT and wanted to post what solved my problems. I had about 220,000 miles at the time of the work being done. I bought this Tacoma used back in 2015, with 140,000 miles on it. Until this last year, I've done nothing but tires, batteries, and oil changes. I got the 200,000 mile service done at a Toyota dealership, which also replaced the rear leaf springs on a recall notice that I'd been ignoring because my original ones showed no sign of a problem, and I'm lazy about that stuff. When I got it back from that, I noticed there was an extra leaf spring on each side, which of course, told me I was a dumass and should have had it done a couple years earlier...anyway...

After seeing some advice here, and checking around, I talked to the guy who has been working on my truck lately. He ended up replacing all u joints, since I told him if one was bad, replace all, the carrier bearing, which was probably the main culprit, since he found it had cracked in a place we couldn't see from underneath, and he had the driveshaft realigned. Also, at this time, I decided to get him to replace all the shocks and front struts, since they were all original.

All noise and vibration was gone. I'm posting this a few months later because I wanted to see if it stayed fixed and so far so good. Also, I can't say how bad it might have been, but with the shocks and struts, it seemed like it had a better ride, handled better, and just felt more stable driving around. Maybe I'm just mental on that, but it sure seems like it.

Anyway, he charged me about $2100 (I think, gettin' old, and this guy only takes cash) to do the work, and since I'm really at the age where I ain't crawling under to do anything other than change the oil, I felt it was well worth the money. I think about $600 or so alone was shocks and struts.

But, I just wanted to post this, so if anyone else has symptoms like mine, you can take this for what you want. Maybe replacing the carrier bearing would have solved the problems, but considering I plan on driving this heavy duty war wagon until one of us dies, well, I have no problem just replacing stuff before it really breaks down. I have been able to get some info on several things through the years from this site, and just wanted to pass it along.

 

2008 SRT? 2015 SRS? Good fix though. Congrats.

 

Uh, 2008 SRS...sorry about that. Not good with capital letters.