My wife was driving on the highway and heard a pop. She said there was a lot of grinding noise, and the vehicle started slowing down. I went and picked her up and moved the vehicle since she was stopped on a bridge with little shoulder and the dog was with her. I put it in drive and heard a bunch of grinding and the vehicle wouldn't move. I put it in 4low and the grinding went away and the vehicle drove forward. I was thinking that the diff went out and I was going to be spending a lot of money. I had just spent $1k a month ago on it.
Here are several pics. The first is the problem I had about a month ago where the c-clip popped off the axle and the axle was pulling away from the hub. I had new upper control arms installed with new ball joints prior to the c-clip popping off. I don't know if my mechanic forgot to put the c-clip back on or if it just popped off. I had a previous post about this issue. I couldn't get the c-clip to stay on and my mechanic fixed it but it popped off again. He finally got it to stay after the 2nd time back. This first pick was taken from the back side, but all pictures are from the passenger side.
The other photo is right after the CV broke and covered everything in oil. Previously, my mechanic put some grease in the boots and resealed the CV's when he did my upper control arms. The boot is torn in the picture.
The last picture is the fixed cruiser. He charged me $200 out the door for the fix. It seems like he gave me a discount because I thought the parts would be more than $200. As you can tell he didn't use Toyota parts.
Between the first incident with the c-clip and the CV breaking, I put close to 1,500 miles on the vehicle over the last 3 weeks. I drove it from Austin, TX to Cloudcroft, NM. I did go up in the mountains to a cabin but the dirt roads weren't too bad.
I only have 157,000 miles so if I can get another 3 years out of this vehicle without spending too much I will be happy. I don't really wheel it, and only need the 4wheel drive capability 2-3 times a year. It's my wife's vehicle so she just uses it around town mostly.
Here are several pics. The first is the problem I had about a month ago where the c-clip popped off the axle and the axle was pulling away from the hub. I had new upper control arms installed with new ball joints prior to the c-clip popping off. I don't know if my mechanic forgot to put the c-clip back on or if it just popped off. I had a previous post about this issue. I couldn't get the c-clip to stay on and my mechanic fixed it but it popped off again. He finally got it to stay after the 2nd time back. This first pick was taken from the back side, but all pictures are from the passenger side.
The other photo is right after the CV broke and covered everything in oil. Previously, my mechanic put some grease in the boots and resealed the CV's when he did my upper control arms. The boot is torn in the picture.
The last picture is the fixed cruiser. He charged me $200 out the door for the fix. It seems like he gave me a discount because I thought the parts would be more than $200. As you can tell he didn't use Toyota parts.
Between the first incident with the c-clip and the CV breaking, I put close to 1,500 miles on the vehicle over the last 3 weeks. I drove it from Austin, TX to Cloudcroft, NM. I did go up in the mountains to a cabin but the dirt roads weren't too bad.
I only have 157,000 miles so if I can get another 3 years out of this vehicle without spending too much I will be happy. I don't really wheel it, and only need the 4wheel drive capability 2-3 times a year. It's my wife's vehicle so she just uses it around town mostly.
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