Rear diff blew, locked up, snapped driveshaft

[DCD5907]

So my ‘18 big horn with 75k miles and same gear rear had the axel bearings seize, i always ran amsoil 75w90 sever gear changed at 20k mile intervals. Never used for towing. I was 4 miles from home, so i drove it. Wrecked both axels, filled the whole assembly with beautiful metallic flake. I did a whole rebuild and noticed the carrier bearing races were hard as glass, they shattered when i pressed them off. Chinese bearings in a zf unit. Garbage mopar/zf

 

[pmmully]

I had the same thing happen... twice, but to the front differential. Truck is 100% dealer services due to Warranty Forever. Matter of fact been on shop 3 weeks while diff from boneyard comes in, they will go through it, and replacing axles. Warrenty law is they can use used or reman parts, just not more
Miles than your rig. Regardless, they are paying 100%, except for freight.

The issue is dodge discontinued the gear sets that are supplied by AAM. In fact, dodge corporate discontinued parts beyond 2019! This is from customer service itself. So we had no choice to go the boneyard approach. It's all about liability using aftermarket with dealers, and extended warranties.

GM and Ford are doing the same thing. Sucks big time. Good news is aftermarket is alive and well. But, it's a dirty little secret in the industry.

You can get any gearset from Torque King, which is a distributor for AAM OEM parts. There are others. Or you can get the boneyard replacement, just make sure you go through what you get. Two hour swap is about right, but brake bleeds, etc, I would calendar 4 hours. Minton Motors is one of the largest dodge boneyard, located in Kentucky.

Power train Products sells reman units with Yukon geatsets. 5 yr parts and labor to your local shop, $3600

 

[Steele713]

I have a 2019 Laramie 2wd. Heard a whining and a clicking sound and truck was louder than normal from backend. I thought a wheel bearing. Took it to dealer and they said metal shavings in differential. They wrote it up as rear axle failure, driveshaft failure as well as I had a tick up front which was a manifold. Got it in with a tad over 58k on it so I made the powertrain warranty. Had my truck for 10 weeks...but yes 10k to repair is about right. Mine has 3.92 gears. All good now.

 

[Racer9]

Wow, lots of info here. Sure am glad mines coming apart for the TrueTrac install in a couple weeks. Yeah, I got the master rebuild kit. I think I'm going to request doing the pinion bearings as well.

 

[Racer_X]

Well, I was headed out on a road trip about a month ago. 6 hours into my trip, the rear diff exploded, and locked up, shearing the drive shaft, and it flew out the rear onto the highway.

Towed it to a local dodge dealership and its just shy of 10k to fix.

What a bummer.

Its a 2016 Ram 1500 Laramie with the 3.21

This happened to my 2009 with about 60k miles on it. Was taking my wife to hospital for out-patient surgery Thanksgiving week a few years back, less than a mile from home at 5am and boom! truck jumped up about 2 feet and driveshaft wrapped into a pretzel. Had it towed to dealer, I called them after she got out of surgery and the idiot svc advisor asked me if I was racing the truck. Come to find out the pinion nut had backed off and dropped the rear yke and driveshaft and locked up the rear gears, eating itself in the process. I had the Max Care warranty and didn't pay a dime for the repair. The a$$ svc writer never apologized for accusing me of racing my all stock 2wd truck. They didn't even have the decency to clean off the spewed gear oil all underneath the truck. Stealerships!

 

[boblonben]

On my last Ram, when the rear differential went out.
I was smiling, because then Mopar Extended Warranty was still in effect.

That is why a bought the Mopar Extended Warranty with my current 2016 Ram.
Next Month the extended warranty runs out.
I have to look for some kind of Mopar Warranty, before then.

You can buy a new MOPAR extended warranties depending on your miles. Am on my third one just now at the 12 year mark but less than 100K. Last one cost me $3022. Good luck.

 

[GTyankee]

That is good to know, i am at 66,000 miles

Thank you for the information

 

[pmmully]

Extended warrenty..... all good unless the parts are no longer available via dodge sku. I have a lifetime, it's a Kakashow, getting used boneyard parts via the warrenty. Warrenty forever has been excellent, out of their control. Watch... the lawsuits are about to begin...

 

[inuyasha-rules]

The first time my dad's went out, it started growling, then a short time later lost all power to the rear end. The second time, it locked up solid with no warning doing 80mph down the highway. Twisted the driveshaft, destroyed the transfer case, and most of the rear suspension. My guess is heavy loading helped kill it, because he had a large toolbox in the bed, and miscellaneous parts for the jobs he was going to, and was probably over what a 1500 is rated for. Both times warranty covered the repair.

 

[Silver21Ram]

Things are gonna happen regardless of age, miles, maintenance performed (or not) ....
My thoughts always go back to 1- You can't plan for this, and 2- Not everyone has 10 grand extra cash lying around.

These vehicles are obscenely expensive to buy, ridiculously expensive to maintain and repair, and very costly to operate.
Everything related to it is a money pit.

Where does it go from here?
I don't think that anyone can really afford these things, it's more like when it happens, you just have to figure it out. And that's a very bad place to be!

 

[crazy jerry]

So you are letting the dealer fix it? Lets us know, because some of us would have some ideas. If you still have a choice, tow that puppy home.

I'd take this as an opportunity to get rid of tiny 3.21's and put some 4.10's on ot... The 3.21 is even taller or tinier then the small one in this photo.

View attachment 533542

are you for real ? 4.10 pinion head would be smaller.
ring gears are same diam and teeth. difference is the 4.10 would be slightly thicker but the differential didnt explode because of that.
probly it had little or no oil

 

[sullivan]

So I had my brother pick it up as I was out of state before Christmas.

From the dealership back home, was pretty much highway speeds. It wasn't until my brother hit the neighborhood streets at 25-30mph that he noticed a weird noise.

So upon my arrival home for the holidays, I discovered the noise was coming from the rear passenger wheel.

I pulled the wheel off and discovered this. I am not sure how to react or what to do, but it was very upsetting after spending a grand total of $8700 and having to repair this on Christmas day.














Last but not least, is this grove photographed below normal? Seems odd. It appears the finish wasn't worn away, so I can only imagine this is factory. I've never seen this on a rotor before. Possibly for balancing?

 

[Daw14]

Groove is normal ,for balancing.

 

[JF19Longhorn]

Wow.. glad you got the truck home. Hope she treats you better in the future.