6 hours into a 12 hour trip, towing a 2,600 lb. travel trailer. I heard and felt a bang, much like a driveshaft thump or hard shift, but much harder. A few seconds later I felt a vibration and started to pull over. As I did both front tires locked up into a skid. The trans shifted fine, and t-case shifted fine. But any attempt at moving failed, the front tires would not budge.
I had it towed to a dealership, and continued the trip in a rented Tacoma (luckily the dealership had rental cars and allowed us to tow our trailer). Later they call and inform me that the front diff tore itself apart, and took the front driveshaft with it. Luckily they were able to find parts and fix it within 2 days, which was amazing, but it cost me $7k (rental truck included).
I've read about the weaker 2-pinion front diffs, but usually the failures involved some hard offroading. I live in Florida, we hardly have hills, or rocks. Is it possible to have a something go wrong over time? I've hard a hard "shift clunk" when going to D-N-R. I also had some vibration around 50-60mph after putting in an aftermarket cv axle. I recently changed a cv axle to a factory one, which helped some, but still clunked pretty hard and had a minor vibration. After the repair, the clunk and vibration are completely gone. Could the diff have had play in it somehow? And perhaps towing and accelerating on the highway exacerbated it into failure?
I had it towed to a dealership, and continued the trip in a rented Tacoma (luckily the dealership had rental cars and allowed us to tow our trailer). Later they call and inform me that the front diff tore itself apart, and took the front driveshaft with it. Luckily they were able to find parts and fix it within 2 days, which was amazing, but it cost me $7k (rental truck included).
I've read about the weaker 2-pinion front diffs, but usually the failures involved some hard offroading. I live in Florida, we hardly have hills, or rocks. Is it possible to have a something go wrong over time? I've hard a hard "shift clunk" when going to D-N-R. I also had some vibration around 50-60mph after putting in an aftermarket cv axle. I recently changed a cv axle to a factory one, which helped some, but still clunked pretty hard and had a minor vibration. After the repair, the clunk and vibration are completely gone. Could the diff have had play in it somehow? And perhaps towing and accelerating on the highway exacerbated it into failure?
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