3rd Gen Poll: Rear End Noise howling when feathering throttle

My dealership was a pain in the ass . They told me the service manager said it was exhaust resonating. I called that bs and took him for a ride. All of the sudden the noise is different than when my truck was in. He said he would talk with Toyota directly. 1 week later they said they are opening a TSB on my truck. It goes in Monday because they want to check the drive train angles. Well atleast it's farther along with the engineers at Toyota getting involved. I'm also one step closer to the lemon law. Stay tuned ... more bs starts to get slung Monday at 7Am.

 

Take a sample and send it to Ken at Blackstone labs. Should be interesting, the fluid will tell the story mine was underfilled and BLACK.

 

It has nothing to do with a "magnetic clutch", which I assume was his words for the rear e-locker. My Sport has it and no locker. Pretty sure several other Sports have as well.

 

I was told (by the toyota engineer) that it was a characteristic of the double cab long bed

This was, of course, after he test drove another one and confirmed it had the same howl.

 

I don't want to touch anything. I'm afraid they are looking for a way out of fixing it.
They'll try and pull some "you contaminated the differential by taking a sample ", or some bs .

I'm a huge Tacoma person. I love my truck. I love driving my truck. I'm not bashing Toyota just to bash them. I'm a Toyota guy.. I just want my truck to drive without a issue. That's not much to ask for spending $40k on a new Tacoma. I want to drive this thing 10 yrs or more. 10 years I will have 400,000 miles. I avg 39,000 per year. I just want Toyota to fix this huge problem. I have a 60,000 Mike power train warranty. I will have a / year old truck with 0 warranty left and the diff will fail. It shouldn't happen.

 

How CAN they fix this issue? That would mean recalling hundreds of thousands of TRDOR 4x4s. The sop is to deny deny until the customer just persistent.

There is no quick fix, no magic fluid or tricks. This occurred at the manufacturing level.

It's like a run away freight train. They're using denial to justify pumping out more of them in Baja Mexico in the name of profiits...

All we are to them is a monthly payment or one lump sum. They cut corners and will pay dearly for this...

 

His theory is really disconcerting....especially since he suspects the"magnetic clutch". Your truck has a magnetic clutch.......

......on the ac relay.

 

Maybe he got confused. I have no reason not to believe him. He didn't discount the pinnion bearing either.

I'm about to call the dealership and tell them the 2nd truck they obtained for me has a faulty differential also.

I may just buy a ram or f150. I'm getting tired of playing " detective" on a 35k truck.. Toyota left a sour taste in my mouth.

 

This is going to be as bad as the VW buy back. I know people that won't touch them now. Toyota will soon need to do something if they are flooded with bad pr.

 

The first and second gen rotting frame crisis hasn't hurt their resale values.....

Vw buy back was completely different on a whole different level. Cars could literally not be registered, the dpf and egr systems were failing and there was no fix without adding scr or reprogramming them to regen almost non-stop.

At some point, the howl/whine/subsonic assault will be dealt with. As of now no one knows what it is.

 

Except they got caught red handed by the the California Clean Air Resource Board and EPA. We don't have anybody that big enough to go batt for us right now.

 

The RAV4 and Highlander Awd models have an electromagnetic coupler....those are a known issue. Not a tacoma issue.....but maybe as you said..... he's confused.

As for a Ram? I own one. You're going from the frying pan and into the fire. Go count up the recalls on the fourth gen rams.....betcha can't count do it without taking off your shoes and socks..


If my starts to howl I will do two things:

1. Get it documented at the dealer

2. Have it diagnosed by an independent differential specialist.

An answer will eventually come on Toyotas timeline. Whether people wish to wait that long is up to them.

 

I called a Indy shop in my area to see what they'd would think. Specifically driveline components. I had mention that my fluid was BLACK and he commended me on obtaining a sample. But my theory and his is that if the differential was under filled during the break in process, that would generate enough heat to fry the pinnion bearing. He said that his shop recommends fluid change at 500 miles. He said if the fluid was low and it "cooked itself" that would lead to issues like this. Or the backlash needs adjustment.

He said the particles floating around are made from phosphorous that aid in the break in like a lapping compound.The rest being metallic dust.. But if the fluid levels are off then that would lead to damage. I'm pretty sure my levels were a bit low, they weren't pouring out of the weep hole and I had to stick my index finger about 1" in to really feel any fluid.

So the question begs... Are owners with howl driving on around on cooked/low fluid that contributed this? What about the other members that report no issue. Are their fluid levels correct?

 

How much fluid was in your rear diff?

Never mind - reread your post.

Look this isn't rocket science. There's just a ton of speculation. The shop you called covered a lot of bases - it could be one of those things...or none. Same with that tech you talked to.

Like I offered, if someone with the howl goes to an independent shop and gets a real diagnosis on tear down, I'd help him fund it. Until then, just about everything that could go wrong with a diff has been covered....but only one of them has possibly been actually confirmed.

 

Changed mine at about 1,000. It saw very light duty up until then. I was about 3/4 quart low in the rear, iirc. I have 17,000 miles and no howl.

 

Why don't you all form a class action lawsuit? That's the only way to actually solve this problem.

 

I'm not sure anybody is WILLING to do that. Having a indy shop do the tear down will most likely void the warranty... Speculation sure. I know that when I first got my truck there was virtually no howling/whining sound, it was a progressive sound that got worse.

Nobody knows how much fluid is in each vehicle. The dealerships hating doing PDI's (pre-delivery inspections) so your'e at the mercy of the factory.

It's not rocket science. Just a failure of automotive engineering or complete brazen incompetence at the manufacturing level. In any event Toyota is not disclosing this information and we as consumers are left in the dark... Toyota took the same approach and attitude when whole Prius ordeal occurred. Only when people got killed did they take action. First it was " floor mats" , then it was " gas pedals" till it was revealed it was poor programming and "digital fly by wire" throttle error inputs...

If you read on here they're telling customers its " running boards", " tire whine", " Normal for the vehicle".

Typical Toyota...

 

My buddies litigated those cases. Got millions. Let's hope and pray no one gets hurt and that the noise is just a noise. If it is just a noise and we are in no danger then make it where we can't hear it and buying us a pair of earbuds each doesn't count.

 

As mentioned before, the only way to get toyota's attention is to file a class action law suit. I think there are enough people just on this forum to get one going.

 

I bet. Horrible act on Toyota's part. I hope so too. They've got us between a rock and a hard place. If you take it to a indy shop you risk voiding the warranty. You let Toyota do the repair and examination they control the chain of evidence. They must know about this because some members here said they took it " away" for analysis.

They came by and did their damage control and left. Said it was the " pinion bearing" and no further explanation was given..