Bad Drive shaft??? (1 Viewer)

[WP2LC]

2015 LC with 160k. My wife's daily driver, she started hearing a chirping noise coming from the rear of the car when she let off the throttle. She was very concerned, so she took it to the local toyota dealer. They replaced the rear drive shaft for $1100. It got rid of the problem 90% of the time. At 25mph if you let off you can still hear the chirp and you hear an odd squeak while in reverse.

I searched here and didn't find any posts about drive shafts going bad.

I took it back to toyota who is now telling me that the front drive shaft is the source of the reverse noise and they wanted to replace that too. I told them no way.

I can't imagine this is the actual problem.

Any advice?

 

[Battleship]

Seems like a strange diagnosis. Try greasing it to see if that changes the noise. If not, move on. Did they give you your old DS?

How I grease my front driveshaft

I've seen a few threads asking for advice on getting the front driveline lubed, and even a couple asking whether there are even zerks up there. Had to do my drivelines recently and figured I'd take some pictures of what I do. First off.. the equipment. No fancy grease gun or nozzle here. Just a...

forum.ih8mud.com

 

[Sandroad]

I agree with @Battleship

Dry u-joints can chirp and squeak, so first of all, grease all 3 zerks on the front propeller shaft. Chirping and squeaking can also come from suspension and brakes, but since a new rear shaft almost solved the noise, I’d put my bet on front shaft u-joints. Those are almost never greased as maintenance at the dealer, even though they should be. After greasing, check the play in the front shaft by trying to move it side to side.

 

[bloc]

Our driveshafts are really, really good, as long as you maintain them. They rarely go bad by your mileage as long as that is done.

@WP2LC do you know whether they were getting greased properly for the life of the vehicle?

If the rear went bad from lack of maintenance they probably didn’t grease the front either and it very well may be in need of attention.

Thing is, you don’t have to replace the whole shaft. The u-joints are serviceable and only about $200 retail per shaft. Especially on the front where it’s a very slight misalignment (meaning the u-joints aren’t under a lot of stress) and the length barely changes during normal operation (so the slip yoke also sees little stress).

 

[04UZJ100]

Gotta love a dealer. Replace whole driveshaft when you can rebuild the spiders.

 

[bloc]

Gotta love a dealer. Replace whole driveshaft when you can rebuild the spiders.

To be fair they may not have had anyone skilled enough to install them.

 

[KLF]

Our driveshafts are really, really good, as long as you maintain them. They rarely go bad by your mileage as long as that is done.

@WP2LC do you know whether they were getting greased properly for the life of the vehicle?

If the rear went bad from lack of maintenance they probably didn’t grease the front either and it very well may be in need of attention.

Thing is, you don’t have to replace the whole shaft. The u-joints are serviceable and only about $200 retail per shaft. Especially on the front where it’s a very slight misalignment (meaning the u-joints aren’t under a lot of stress) and the length barely changes during normal operation (so the slip yoke also sees little stress).

Are you sure the u-joints are serviceable? I hope they are. At least they are greasable.

Had an '04 Highlander about 10 years ago, one of the u-joints went bad. Not only were they non-greasable, they couldn't be replaced. It was a 3-piece driveshaft, and I had to buy the entire thing, including the carrier bearings. Tried several shops, nope. Toyota wanted almost $2K for just the part. Found a place in CA that sold a reman'd for $750, but I had to ship the core back. I was pissed.

 

[04UZJ100]

To be fair they may not have had anyone skilled enough to install them.

Yet they’re rebuilding TTV6 engines from the ground up…….

 

[bloc]

Are you sure the u-joints are serviceable? I hope they are. At least they are greasable.

Had an '04 Highlander about 10 years ago, one of the u-joints went bad. Not only were they non-greasable, they couldn't be replaced. It was a 3-piece driveshaft, and I had to buy the entire thing, including the carrier bearings. Tried several shops, nope. Toyota wanted almost $2K for just the part. Found a place in CA that sold a reman'd for $750, but I had to ship the core back. I was pissed.

I rebuilt my front driveshaft with new joints last week.