New Title: Severe drive line noise came and disappeared

[Miqie]

So after we test drove it and heard the sound. They put it on the lift at the dealership and came back and said “shrug”. Nothing looked like it was loose in a way to hit anything in the drive line.

They are keeping the truck this week and calling Toyota corporate. They may drain and inspect the diff idk. But they now are back to looking at rotating components front to back. This dealer has been incredible through all this. Prioritizing us and our situation. Detaching their foreman to help and providing us a replacement taco as a loaner.

My family made it to vacation. Nothing more important in life than not disappointing your kids.

Pic is the loaner 4th gen taco in the front and the 3rd gen our friend has who came and rescued us from the side of the road.

View attachment 14110

Looking at the pic..............uh, the loaner isn't leaking, is it?

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[trey_is_a_jedi]

Looking at the pic..............uh, the loaner isn't leaking, is it?

AC water, it dried up

also family doesn’t want me posting pics so taking them down

 

[TacoTacoBurritoBurrito]

I must be missing something (I'm old), but why do people block out their license plate when they post pictures; it's visible to anyone when you're driving, or parked, and it's pretty hard to run a trace on a plate, so what's up with that?

Truck didn’t alarm anything Pryor?
GL

 

[Tacanta14]

Truck didn’t alarm anything Pryor?
GL

HUH?

 

[oxi]

WTF kind of world are we living in when people do shit like that? Could be the reason I live alone in the boonies and only see people once a week when I drive to town to get my mail and groceries for the week! Thanks for your reply and be careful out there!

I've heard of swatting, and have pretty much lost all faith in "humanity".

Humanity sux today, most are selfish mf's

Typically the rear end will give you signs before it goes south. The "blown" rear end is not accurate because it did not snap or grenade.

I remember years ago my bud had a 2wd Jeep Commanche (offensive by certain direction) and he was passing me on the interstate, and I could smell gear oil and a slight burning of the gear oil at 70 mph.

An hour later one of the axle shafts just flew out of the rear axle and rolled a 1/2 mile down. Needless to say, we rented a dolly, had a wrecker winch the Jeep onto the dolly (placed the axle shaft back in loose), strapped it down and dollied it back home to seek repairs.

Key is, you could smell the gear oil on the highway, that was the sign of trouble.

My 2005 X-Runner gave me a sign before I blew the clutch on the track. I could smell clutch burn a little bit while fueling up at the gas station but I thought nothing of it. That is until coming out of the bus stop turn and she blew, no smoke, no nothing just went quietly. The center of the clutch just broke off. Too much power for factory clutch was the culprit.

Toyota's give you a warning that something is wrong in my experience of 30 years driving these trucks. I never had anything just "blow up" without getting a sign beforehand. Smell, leaks, or bad performance or driving mistake.

A driving mistake was during a desert race when my 1986 Toyota hit a bump too hard and it de-cranked the drivers side torsion bar. We thought we were done but it just de-cranked, nothing broken and we finished the race with left front lower a-arm resting on the bump stop and right rear almost full droop. Even drove it home to base in that condition. Yeah, you could say the t-bar was "blown" but it still got me home and only needed re-cranking to be back to normal.

 

[Mrknowitall]

I think the engines come from Alabama but I have no idea where rear ends or transmission are assembled. Hopefully someone here knows.

Fairly sure the axles are built at Hino. That plant was announced to be closing in a few years. Fluid would get filled during assembly in Mexico.

 

[trey_is_a_jedi]

I don’t have much of an update. Aside from the initial occurrence and recreating it with the dealer mechanic they have not been able to recreate it again this week. They are checking through a list of things and driving it. Put over 100 miles on it and it hasn’t come back. No other checks have failed.

when we recreated the issue the loud metallic pinging/clanking occurred and got super loud as we slowed down but then went away and was totally silent before we could pull over. When it happened the first time it lasted longer. I was able to pull off the highway and then drive up and down a side road with a mechanic. But it was gone the next day.

I hope to have some more info tomorrow. Seems like just some kind of balancing issue in the driveline or maybe the u joint but who knows. It’s very frustrating because I will not drive the truck hundreds of miles home not knowing if it’s gonna leave me stranded or worse. This was not a “I can keep going” sound it was a get off the road immediately sound.

 

[trey_is_a_jedi]

Last update for now

I changed the thread title to reflect what I know/don’t know. The original title was misleading.

The severely loud metal clanking that changed with speed (getting worse while slowing from 70mph down) has ceased for now. No idea what it was maybe ujoint, rear diff, driveshaft. Some imbalance? Break in noises? who knows.

Over the past week the dealer went through a laundry list of diagnostics and checks and drove the truck 200 miles with no recurrence or observed abnormalities. Toyota released the truck to me yesterday.

I have lost trust in the truck. I rented a second vehicle so a family member could follow me the 7 hours home incase my truck broke down again.

I have since put over 400 miles on it driving home without issue.

Since no “fix” was performed and no “issue” was diagnosed conclusively I also had to pay nearly $500 for the ‘loaner’ I had for a week. . I am trying to fight that charge as they acknowledged the issue and were concerned enough with it to “diagnose” for a whole week.

I guess the lesson learned is if you hear something just keep driving until something totally fails otherwise you are on the hook for $$ if they can’t find something to fix. Also, record it with your phone for evidence incase they can’t recreate it.

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