Rear Pinion failure and no parts availability

[ShadowsPapa]

I wonder how many that failed were on the factory service fill? Being on my 4th Gladiator, every one of the rear diffs took a 1/2 qt. more fluid until it dribbled out the fill port hole.

I thought these were supposed to be filled to 1/8" below the hole - not running out the hole.

Still, if that's all it took, 1/2 quart, that's plenty full. That's not much at all. Figure the amount of fluid it takes to raise the level even 1/8" in these once it's up about half-way, it wasn't all that low.
You can bet that there's a whole lot of Jeeps out there that are that low without issue.


The way these are lubricated - the ring gear is like a water wheel, slinging lube up and across the top where it runs to the pinion and carrier bearings.
The videos of these with a "clear rear cover" show how all of the bearings are lubricated by splash.
If not for the heat, you could run lower than that and not have any issues.

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[AstroZombie]

This is a 21' Mojave. Stock except for 35's.
Started hearing a loud, speed dependent noise at what I thought was the front diff. Took for service (still under powertrain warranty) and they said it was a rear pinion failure (not a seal, the pinion gear itself). The tech guessed this was what it was from description and later confirmed it. I was surprised then that I didn't see a whole bunch of posts on it.
The issue is there is no part availability and no ETA on part availability. No loaner available from dealer either.
Have Jeep Cares involved and they couldn't really offer anything.
They did say that the whole rear axle is the replacement part.
Any thoughts on this? How long is reasonable to wait for something to develop and what are my options? Been at the dealer about 10 days so far.

This sucks!! it took Jeep over a year to replace 1 shock. In the end they had to replace all 4. Time for a gear set upgrade?

 

[AstroZombie]

I had something similar happen to my JK, but it was the locker that started to come apart. Dealer had it for just over 6 months, and the only repair solution was to wait for an entire rear axle assembly, as Jeep was not interested in any other solution. I kept getting promises on parts delivery…all of which were missed. When the first axle was delivered to the dealer, it was dropped and the housing cracked, so waited another 45 days for another axle assembly.

Looking back, since I can setup my own rear ends, I would have taken my jeep home and just fixed it myself and ate the costs.

Fortunately, I had my 47 CJ2a Truck conversion that I built several years ago, so the 47 went with us that year to Moab for our winter trip and turned out to be a blast having the old jeep in its natural habitat.

How long is too long? I think it depends upon how much money your are willing to spend to fix it yourself…

I dropped my jeep off 3 times to get my shock replaced because they said the part was in. Guess what it wasn't or they had the wrong shock.

 

[midcont]

update on this fun saga.
after over a month at dealership the rear diff was replaced. got the truck back and on my first drive guess what; same sound.
back to the dealer it goes and now they say the center diff bad also, will replace.
about 10 more days at dealer, get it back last Friday.
first drive again, same sound, less frequently but the same and still can be cancelled out by engaging the auto 4wd.
so my original thought was it's the front diff and that's still my thought, although according to dealer center and rear had metal in them and were replaced.
i have jeep cares involved (have since second week) and have asked for star care to be added so a regional tech can take a look at this thing. dealer should be embarrassed. I don't want to take it elsewhere though and have finger pointing if not resolved.
at least i'll have all new diffs.

 

[Hootbro]

back to the dealer it goes and now they say the center diff bad also, will replace.

What did they actually replace for the "center diff"? Drive shaft for the center carrier bearing or the transfer case?

 

[midcont]

What did they actually replace for the "center diff"? Drive shaft for the center carrier bearing or the transfer case?

The entire transfer case.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

first drive again, same sound, less frequently but the same and still can be cancelled out by engaging the auto 4wd.

Very interesting............
The way that the "SelecTrac" transfer case works (if that's what you mean by auto 4wd) is that if there's no slippage, the clutch pack is applied based on road speed and throttle position. Take off from a dead stop, it's applied, then released - unless you mash it, then it starts to apply again. So even in 4H auto, it may either be applied, not applied at all, or somewhere in between

 

[Hootbro]

The entire transfer case.

Silver lining to their incompetence is looking like you will get a whole new drive axle system out it.

Your situation is a classic example of the warranty process that trumps normal deductive troubleshooting and reasoning.

 

[midcont]

Hopefully the end of this.
Truck was back for the third time and was there for a full month.
Replaced prop shaft and transfer case. Said they found excessive play in drive shaft.
I believe the problem is fixed. The experience was not fun.
Hootbro is exactly correct that the warranty process trumps normal troubleshooting, but I have to believe this process could have been handled more efficiently from a mechanical perspective. The parts availability was also severely lacking considering they're building trucks every day with the same parts it took dealership weeks to get. On top of it all the service managers are difficult to get ahold of and rarely return phone calls.
Jeep Cares at least was able to provide me days old updates via email communications with them, but there is obviously a disconnect there and the dealership clearly doesn't care for them or the job they purport to do.
I was assigned a "Star Case" to help expediate and dealership explained that all this did was assign a person at a desk with no mechanical knowledge to call dealership and ask them very basic questions from a manual. That person, they said, would have no deductive reasoning to help.
Just a poor system. Makes it easy to believe when you hear that Stellantis is in trouble.

 

[Hootbro]

The parts availability was also severely lacking considering they're building trucks every day with the same parts it took dealership weeks to get.

Manufacturing and spares is two different pipelines. They are not going to sacrifice and create manufacturing stoppages to make up for service part spares.

Still glad to hear you stuck it out and so far seems resolved.

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