expected lifespan of a rear differential?

[The motor guy]

Yes but this truck never comes out of first gear for 8 hours (except when changing job sites), not quite the same thing. It's a lot like a garbage truck in it's use

Oh I see.

 

[Shel_B]

The bearings experience very little load. I'd say just the opposite. The load between the ring and pinion is significantly greater when accelerating.

You may be right. You've given me something to think about.

 

[Torrid]

what vehicle and conditions?

If its grandpas vehicle that gets 300miles a month I'm sure it might be longer than one doing hotshot transporting.

I've heard this hotshotting reference for the first time a few weeks ago and now I see it a lot, though to be fair it's possible I just didn't notice it before because at the time I didn't know what it meant.

 

[The Critic]

What about the clutch pack on LSD’s?

 

[The motor guy]

You may be right. You've given me something to think about.

Definitely, but I still think the ring and pinion last longer

 

[IndyIan]

It's pretty specific to the vehicle. In my Cadillac ATS research they had more than a few rear diffs fail quite early, even in automatic AWD ones... One cause was bad/soft internals and some also had venting issues, so many blew out the seals.

 

[Torrid]

What about the clutch pack on LSD’s?

I wonder that myself. I always did 10k mile fluid changes on clutch type LSDs in performance applications. Might be overkill but I hoped it would be cheap insurance.

 

[paulo57509]

I think open differentials last longer than LSD's just because they have fewer parts that wear out.

The (open) differential in my '63 Bonneville had been problem free thru 325k miles when I sold the car. I siphoned the lube (I didn't feel like removing the carrier) and refilled it once. I don't recall ever replacing the axle bearings.

Those '57-'64 Pontiac/Oldsmobile differentials were known to be bullet proof.

 

[Chris142]

The rear diff in my jeep gets new oil every 25k or so. Usually synthetic. It's carrier bearings wore out around 180k. The gears were still ok.

 

[Malo83]

Original diff on my 83 Silverado still rolling along, did a fluid change at the 150K mark.

 

[The motor guy]

Original diff on my 83 Silverado still rolling along, did a fluid change at the 150K mark.

Doesn't get driven much huh?

 

[nascarnation]

The only diff failure I ever had was on a 72 Chev Vega. The diff carrier tapered bearings pitted and got noisy in under 50,000 miles. This was a pretty common failure for this model year, not sure if it was quality of the bearings or bad setup of the endplay at the factory. Size-wise they were proportional to the diff size so I don't think it was a design issue, most of the usage was highway miles so minimal loading.

 

[Malo83]

Doesn't get driven much huh?

Daily driven, but not far 235K.

 

[The motor guy]

An initial early first and second oil change will do the most to promote the longest possible life in a differential. If you turn the car over early in its life why bother .

Dis this on my dodge. They call for 15k differential changes, front too if it's 4wd. Thought that's was excessive, so did the first change at 15k then the second 50k later with amsoil, still looked fine, the 3rd change I went 100k with amsoil and still looked like new oil straight out of the bottle. Stealerships just want to rob you blind

 

[vwmaniaman]

I put 2 old scrapped hard drive magnets in bottom of my differential in my 07 Ram 1500.

 

[vwmaniaman]

My 07 Ram 1500 has 226k on my Hemi.

 

[MSCH]

If you drive like a sane person, yes I was reading an article about how the rear differential is overlooked now by vehicle manufacturers. We still use the same rear differentials we did in the 90s and now vehicles are putting 400hp through them from the factory.

well, tellya what my Brother said about that last time I spoke to him because it is along the lines of what you are speaking about axles. He is a powertrain engineer at Borg Warner so he has alot of insight into this sort of thing... his comment was towards transfer cases but it is pertinent to what you just said.. currently he is working on an electric drive rear axle for a Ram but what he said was he sees BW has three transfer cases in production and no one is working on improving them as it is old tech and he figures it wont be long before BW sells production out to another company... and my own opinion is drive axles are just another legacy product that has little room for improvement so its going to go the same way... someone will keep making them as long as they have a product to put them in,but there is little reason for them to come up with anything new on that front..

my own opinion is just to take a look at what GM and Ram use now... basically AAM axles which are a joint venture between the 2 to produce solid drive axles for GM and Ram trucks.. there is nothing in it for them to do but produce the same thing until there is no call for it...

 

[The motor guy]

I put 2 old scrapped hard drive magnets in bottom of my differential in my 07 Ram 1500.

well, tellya what my Brother said about that last time I spoke to him because it is along the lines of what you are speaking about axles. He is a powertrain engineer at Borg Warner so he has alot of insight into this sort of thing... his comment was towards transfer cases but it is pertinent to what you just said.. currently he is working on an electric drive rear axle for a Ram but what he said was he sees BW has three transfer cases in production and no one is working on improving them as it is old tech and he figures it wont be long before BW sells production out to another company... and my own opinion is drive axles are just another legacy product that has little room for improvement so its going to go the same way... someone will keep making them as long as they have a product to put them in,but there is little reason for them to come up with anything new on that front..

my own opinion is just to take a look at what GM and Ram use now... basically AAM axles which are a joint venture between the 2 to produce solid drive axles for GM and Ram trucks.. there is nothing in it for them to do but produce the same thing until there is no call for it...

I believe all they have to do is make them larger to handle higher hp. Larger gear contact area etc. They've been using the AAM in the dodge when it only made 555 ft lbs of torque and they're up to over 1000 now I believe as an example

 

[MSCH]

I believe all they have to do is make them larger to handle higher hp. Larger gear contact area etc. They've been using the AAM in the dodge when it only made 555 ft lbs of torque and they're up to over 1000 now I believe as an example

or they can do like Ford does for the F450's and use the diff out of a school bus.. so basically there is nothing to redesign.

it is worth saying the Rams with 1000 lbs feet of torque get a ring gear that has 18 bolts instead of 12 bolts used in the standard output trucks with the 11.5/11.8 inch ring gear

 

[The motor guy]

or they can do like Ford does for the F450's and use the diff out of a school bus.. so basically there is nothing to redesign.

it is worth saying the Rams with 1000 lbs feet of torque get a ring gear that has 18 bolts instead of 12 bolts used in the standard output trucks with the 11.5/11.8 inch ring gear

I'm pretty sure it's still just a standard 11.5" AAM but they did add an anti swaybar or something.