Damn inferior products

[jveik]

yeah many people overlook that. my dad never changed his diff fluid so the diff locked sometimes for brief periods when it got to about 180,000 miles. change it every 30k and it should be good

[BlenderWizard]

Originally Posted by jveik

yeah many people overlook that. my dad never changed his diff fluid so the diff locked sometimes for brief periods when it got to about 180,000 miles. change it every 30k and it should be good

So, to change the diff fluid, you just pull the cover off?

[twomorestrokes]

Originally Posted by sa200

Have you ever changed your diff gear oil? At 60k i would think it should of been changed once going on twice soon by now....

That is not a bad idea. However, according to the suggested maintenance chart in my owner's manual, GM never does have a set milage to change it. At no milage interval does it state anything other than "Check rear/ front axle fluid level and add fluid as neccesary".

Mine has a drain plug in the bottom so it is easilly changed, but I'm pretty sure the rear cover still needs to be pulled to service the half ton axles.

[kenny-1907]

Originally Posted by sa200

Have you ever changed your diff gear oil? At 60k i would think it should of been changed once going on twice soon by now....

Originally Posted by sa200

Have you ever changed your diff gear oil? At 60k i would think it should of been changed once going on twice soon by now....

It was changed shortly after i bought the truck two years ago and have only put on maybe 20,000 kilometers since then. Although i have no idea what changing the fluid would do other than put new clean fluid in there. My dad has owned vehicles in the past that have run for over 20 years and he has never changed the gear oil and has never had a problem with the differentials either. Ceratin fluids i agree should be changed at certain mileage but i think that changing the gear oil every 30,000 miles or kilometers won't make a bit of difference. If i remember correctly there was a user here on the forum that only had about 40,000 kilometers on their truck and the gears went the same way and that is only 24,800 miles. Didn't even make 30,000 miles. I have only had the truck for 2.5 years and have only put approx 25,000 kilometers on it so i can not say how it was driven in the past but i do not think it was abused, the tires were still factory and the right rear was not extremely worn more than any other which if it was would support the theory of one wheel having spun alot more than the other to cause the damage that was done. I just think it is crappy matieral that was used and changing the gear oil would have made no difference what so ever. That is just my 2 cents.

[twomorestrokes]

Although I think changing the fluid on a regular basis is a good idea, I agree with Kenny 100%. These things just don't hold up that well. Tons of them go out in the exact same way before the truck has even run out of warranty. I spent a lot of years as a GMC service writer and I've seen it time and again. They blast the spider gears and break the pin, usually taking out the carrier and sometimes the case.

That was one of the things that always amazed me about GM. They'd rather pay out all of that warranty expense instead of getting to the root of the problem. My guess is that the bean counters are doing studies on how much the cost savings of production and the possibility of many of them will not give up the goat offsets the warranty expense involved in covering the many that explode.

[99redsilverado]

here check this out:

its the only pic i could find but it gives yall an idea about how bad my wallet was hurting...:::here check this out:
here

[kenny-1907]

I have seen a few like that. Were the gears still stuck in the cover or did they blow right through ? The shop where i had mine done at has a cover hanging on the wall with parts of the carrier stuck through it.

[99redsilverado]

everything blew out.....it shot about twenty feet