REAR DIFF FAILURE! - Not impressed.

A bunch of you are living in Toyota Kool-Aide land. I have owned a total of 6 trucks. I have abused them progressively less as it get old. Spinning through mud is childs play. I have never so much as popped a U-joint. I have also never had leafs that wouldn't shut up. This is a stupid weakness in the Tacoma. Both my Dodges (one that I owned to 300000 kms, the other to 240 000kms) were tough enough for years on end to withstand mudding, crawling, bouncing, hunting and so on. As were my Nissan Hardbody, and my Frontier. We are not talking about hardcore wheeling here! Stock height trucks, with stock sized tires, should not break. Wear out, get stuck, and leak.....but not break. This was driving down a soft trail near some power lines! It all comes back to the less than 8" ring. Every other truck of similar size has a substatially larger assembly. And mine is a lease, so changing the rear is a no go.
And going through mud, as shown above, requires lots of wheelspin, babying it through does not work!

 

It is possible the parking brake was jammed when it broke, that has happened before as well. I say that because those who were present when it happend were wondering why the heck it broke.
I'm willing to acknowledge it may have been a fluke, but to say that a stock truck can't go through soft mud without breaking?
That's just goofy.

 

999

 

1000!

 

Hemi, so you'r trucks getting a new rear axle huh? Well that's good for you. I know of 9 people who have reported blown diffs on TW. I stopped keeping track back in May. It does make me nervous at times when I go wheel in remote places. I do agree with you about the Kool-Aid on at least one issue. The paint. The paint on the tacoma's frame sucks!

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I agree. I've never had any problems with my truck at all and ive had it since feb of 2008, and at 42K.

 

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[/quote]I like this^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^its funny,wonder if I can get a sticker made for my hardhat at work.

 

Yeah - I like my cool aid purple...

Yup you read that right, I have a 2007 that I bought new 2.5 years ago. In the first year i put about 4,000 miles on it. In the last year and a half I have racked up around 45,000 miles. I do tow boats on occasion but didn't even own a hitch up until 6 months ago. This truck has not been abused. Truck is 100% stock with no mods, stock size tires etc.

Last week I come home from vacation for the 4th and notice a slight noise on deceleration. Then I notice a popping noise when backing up. Looks like the rear end is toast, pulled the plug and its full of fluid, and full of metal too. No leaks just trashed guts.

What would you do? Dodge dealer #1 basically told me to pound sand no warranty, dealer #2 is trying to get Dodge to offer some assistance but its been over a week and no response. I will gladly pay for an extended warranty if they would cover the failure. But this is obviously a defect and not some sort of maintenance or wear issue.

I thought I had 100k powertrain warranty, never realized I was driving a time bomb waiting to go. I'm starting to think I should just take it down to the Ford shop and trade it on a new 2011 Superduty. A rear-end blowing at less than 50k is complete ********. Is this a common problem and how much should it realistically cost to fix? I have already been told by an independent guy he can get a used rear for about $1200 and install it, but I'm not real excited about another rear end with no warranty.

Diane of Houston (9/4/04):
I have a 1998 Dodge Durango SLT 3.9 I bought brand new for $31,614. It only has 59,000 miles on it and is falling apart. Current problems include: Upper and lower ball joints were replaced at 25,000 and are bad again already. Rear end needs to be replaced at only 59K miles, rear window motor bad, ABS light stays on, eating tires, the alarm activates intermittently, and the rear A/C blows only hot air. There are numerous fuild leaks; tranny, differential, cv joints, and oil pan.

I also have a 1983 Porsche 944 that I have owned for 21 years and have not had to spend a tenth of what I've spent so far on the Durango. I've had my Harley for 11 years and have only had to change the oil. Needless to say, I won't be keeping my Durango long term. The problems I've had with the Durango are due to poor workmanship and design, not owner negligence.

Kenneth of Espanola, NM June 8, 2010

The 2009 dodge diesel that I have is in the shop for the third time in a month. They cannot seem to correct the problem. I am not happy with the vehicle I purchased

Jeff of Santa Clarita, CA April 14, 2010

2006 dodge charger r/t 59000 miles engine self destructed. Manufactures will not assist in an obvious defective engine, that costs 3/4 of the value of the vehicle in 3 years. I have not heard or seen anyone with similiar problem from any make of vehicles. Engine only had 1/4 life on it. Vehicle was serviced regularly.

Yeah, I will sell my truck sometime tomorrow afternoon. :end coolaid rant:

 

Chris, do you think attempting to climb near vertical wall, romping in the desert at speeds that burn decals off of shocks while bouncing 4 wheels off the ground, may have contributed to a failed ring and pinion?

 

Luck is not a bad thing to have!!!

 

You know what is curious, right before your breakage you had been posting about using brakes to aid differential. Coincidence ?

Maybe thats the reason why you broke the diff

 

Hey man! Hows life in MB? I moved back to Ontario in the spring.

LOL I have some pics and video of you from the day you killed the diff. To be honest you were going pretty hard on your truck, harder than I would ever drive mine (mine was parked 200m up the trail). Its too bad it let go but I don't know if I would ever consider it "light offroading". You were really giving it for long period of time. You ended up getting pulled out by the massive beast.




All I can really say is that in all honesty our trucks are not made for hardcore offroading. In the end they were designed to do about 99% highway driving and the odd trip down a muddy road on the weekend. I think you should look into getting a dedicated offroad rig for hardcore mudding like most of the other guys in the club use.

 

^^^ What he said!

 

Ha ha that place looks like fun, post more pics and videos