2018 Toyota 4Runner Drive Shaft Grease Choice

[Cgates]

I went through a similar search for my 2010 fj cruiser.

What i decided....

The ujoints probably wont be ruined if you use a grease that has moly in it. These joints are well built and many of them go without lube for tons of miles. Most places wont even realize a brand new vehicle has any grease points on it, let alone 6 of them. Just about anything will be fine for these. Just keep them greased. If you insist on the spicer grease, remember its not a lithium grease...so watch out for compatibility.

The moly requirement is not needed on the propeller shaft. Again, anything will do fine here. Many will strongly disagree with this, but its true (with some caveats) just about anything will work here, but you wont get through your 15k service interval. My toyota has the famous "clunk" if i dont keep it lubed. Moly grease will last longer, but my belief is that the moly only masks a low or no grease condition. Remember moly is a dry lubricant. I used lucas red tacky and it would go about 4k miles, better grease will last longer, moly grease will seem to last longer.

Dive into some grease product data sheets and look at the specs. And dont go 15k withoit lubing the driveshaft!

 

[hiflo]

amsoil off road polymeric 5% moly grease

 

[bchannell]

The reason behind 'no moly grease in u-joints' is that there is evidence that moly will allow roller bearings in the cups to "slide" and not roll, causing a flat side wear on these critical bearings. How much moly? How prevalent is the wear,... I dunno, but if they say it happens, then who am I to refute it. I have a Tacoma, it has something like 5 or 6 zerks on the drive, so I just use JT6 on all of them. Moly may help the sliding yoke, but i figure if I keep it greased good, it will last.

I am a recovering oil/grease/lube OCD'er and am constantly trying to not over think this thing.

 

[SargeBB]

You made a great choice with the Mystik JT-6 Hi_Temp #2 on the 4 outer joints and the Valvoline w/Moly on the other 2 zerks. I am on my second Toyota 4x4 pickup. The first one (03 Tundra) is still in the family, on the OE joints & double Cardan. The little 4x4 Tacoma just has the 4 u-joints (regular-cab) & I've always used the Mystik on both vehicles, except for the 2 fittings that called for Moly, and those have always been greased by me using Valvoline Ford-spec. moly in an LC base.

 

[vssjim]

What I find at work is some grease beats no grease in these drive shafts as unless I worked on it before I don't see almost 100 percent no greasing of these shafts ever. The Toyota dealers never grease them and most shops I see don't grease anything. See lots of rust come out of slip yokes when I grease them and black sludge out of joints . We use Delo EP #2 or Lucas grease. I still am not saying it is perfect as many have listed above but I feel better when I see black oil or rust replaced by new lube. So if you don't do your own service may want to ask or look at those drive shafts after a service because I bet they have never been touched.

 

[jrvn]

I have a 2013 Tacoma 4x4 and have used REDLINE CV#2 grease with red moly in all driveline components that have a zerk trucks at 101k miles and hasn't had a single failure by using a grease with moly, previously I had a 2004 Tacoma trd 4x4 used AMSOIL heavy duty #2 with moly every zerk for 260k miles never a u joint failure, the Moly use in Toyota Trucks is an un necessary scare tactic, use a good #2 grease with or without moly and use it at every OCI. also theres a lot of non sense being talked about grease compatability when u grease the joints all old grease will be purged out if done properly or purge it out 2 or 3 times if it makes u sleep better. this is like the old argument if u use full synthetic oil u can never go back to using Dino oil or the engine will explode nonsense.

 

[jrvn]

100 % spot on post
Originally Posted by Cgates
I went through a similar search for my 2010 fj cruiser.

What i decided....

The ujoints probably wont be ruined if you use a grease that has moly in it. These joints are well built and many of them go without lube for tons of miles. Most places wont even realize a brand new vehicle has any grease points on it, let alone 6 of them. Just about anything will be fine for these. Just keep them greased. If you insist on the spicer grease, remember its not a lithium grease...so watch out for compatibility.

The moly requirement is not needed on the propeller shaft. Again, anything will do fine here. Many will strongly disagree with this, but its true (with some caveats) just about anything will work here, but you wont get through your 15k service interval. My toyota has the famous "clunk" if i dont keep it lubed. Moly grease will last longer, but my belief is that the moly only masks a low or no grease condition. Remember moly is a dry lubricant. I used lucas red tacky and it would go about 4k miles, better grease will last longer, moly grease will seem to last longer.

Dive into some grease product data sheets and look at the specs. And dont go 15k withoit lubing the driveshaft!

 

[oliveoil]

I have a 96 Tacoma 4x4 with the 3.4L and have used M1 synthetic from 80k to the present, 289k, and haven't had to replace ANY of the drive train. Lube 15-20k, or every other OCI.

 

[MStarmer]

Been researching a lot of of these threads here and on the 4Runner forum. My manual states "or", so I'm thinking I should be able to just run one grease for both? I have to agree with what was posted above, any grease is probably more than the average owner. I just remember my 92 toyota 4x4 pickup had a map on the visor of all the zerks, I was pretty religious about hitting them all. Had a relative that worked at one of those quick lube places and I asked how they got to all the zerks without moving the car because I always had the wife roll the truck back and I hit them as they came visible. He informed me they didn't even grease the ones they could see, let alone move the truck.

I haven't owned a grease gun in years so I'm hoping to just buy a gun and one tube and hit these every other oil change. It's a 2019 so I doubt anything has really changed..

From the manual;

Screen Shot 2019-08-25 at 1.44.06 PM by Michael Starmer, on Flickr

 

[Gebo]

Originally Posted by MStarmer
Been researching a lot of of these threads here and on the 4Runner forum. My manual states "or", so I'm thinking I should be able to just run one grease for both? I have to agree with what was posted above, any grease is probably more than the average owner. I just remember my 92 toyota 4x4 pickup had a map on the visor of all the zerks, I was pretty religious about hitting them all. Had a relative that worked at one of those quick lube places and I asked how they got to all the zerks without moving the car because I always had the wife roll the truck back and I hit them as they came visible. He informed me they didn't even grease the ones they could see, let alone move the truck.

I haven't owned a grease gun in years so I'm hoping to just buy a gun and one tube and hit these every other oil change. It's a 2019 so I doubt anything has really changed..

From the manual;

Screen Shot 2019-08-25 at 1.44.06 PM by Michael Starmer, on Flickr


I just bit the bullet and got 2 grease guns. Loaded one with Moly and the other without Moly. Probably won't matter to my 4Runner, though.

 

[MStarmer]

Originally Posted by Gebo
I just bit the bullet and got 2 grease guns. Loaded one with Moly and the other without Moly. Probably won't matter to my 4Runner, though.


Sounds like the safest bet, it's not like it's going to break the bank. I'm planning on keeping this thing forever anyway.

Thanks.

 

[tundraotto]

Good choice - now you're also ready for the other greasing needs that will eventually come up - because they do - unexpectedly.

 

[BlakeB]

I use this on pretty much everything including a 2010 Tacoma and a 2016 4Runner. I traded my 07 Tacoma in with 87k trouble free miles in December 2018. I always grease with every oil change.

 

[MStarmer]

I'm thinking I'm just going to use Mystik JT-6 Hi temp for both. I'm not going to go thru enough product to warrant two guns and storage. Would there be any benefit to use the JT-6 Synthetic Hi-Temp ISO 220 over the regular Hi-Temp #2?

 

[MStarmer]

Well I found a tube of the regular Mystik Jt-6 Hi-temp No.2 at a local place and got my Lincoln grease gun the other day off Amazon. Clearly we're probably over thinking this as stated earlier, nobody but us OCD lube guys are even going to think about lubing anything on a recently manufactured car. Mine's a 2019 and I was surprised. Since the first scheduled driveline lube is 15K (and even then it's probably questionable if a dealer hits em without specifically being paid / told to) I decided to give it a shot.

My 4Runner just flipped 2K so I'm a long way from 15K. I decided to slide under and give each fitting a few pumps just to make sure nothing was under lubed or put together dry. I gave each u-joint a couple pumps till it crackled and started to weep. Each of the propeller joints I just gave 3 or 4 to make sure there was adequate. I figure I'll hit em again at 10K, pretty easy.