35000 miles and Rear Axle Assembly is shot

[CarbonSteel]

Everything I've seen is the opposite. These new axles have had constant repairs in line at dealers for nearly three years now. Pinion bearing issues, axle seals leaking, fluid contamination at low mileage, it goes on and on. They're garbage. There's a thread on the JT side of the forum about the rear axles leaking and it adds new pages weekly. It's always on the right hand side, so it's likely a bad casting or production error on the assembly line.

The fact that the fluid gets ruined so quickly tells me that the new metallurgy is poor in the ring and pinion, or the backlash isn't quite right from the factory.

One of the things I did with 200 miles on the odometer is open up the rear vent cap by removing some of the cotton discs from inside. The pressure inside my rear diff can neutralize much more easily now and I'm still protected from water.

The Dana design should be more robust (at least on paper), but there are some things that FCA did to reduce that. They reduced the oil capacity about 1 QT less than previous generations while also reducing the viscosity. These two do not make for a long axle life--particularly if the owner assumes that it is a "lifetime" fill.

The other thing is these axles run hotter than previous generations, which is likely due to the gear teeth design and to some degree the metallurgy. Lastly, the materials used in the LSD discs appear to be substandard and they shed far too much material in normal operation leading to contamination of the oil.

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[D60]

{snip}

The fact that the fluid gets ruined so quickly tells me that the new metallurgy is poor in the ring and pinion, or the backlash isn't quite right from the factory.

This. No axle on any car or light truck should actually require fresh gear oil every 15k miles.

I don't know exactly what is going on, but something ain't right.

I mean primarily it seems to be the LSD's and that just suggests poor formulation of the friction material on the clutches.

If non-LSD axles are also meeting an early demise, I don't know what to say. My Rubicon is at ~28k with no problems but I keep meaning to pot the sensor

 

[RagTopDeluxe]

The bearings in the rear axle of my ‘19 JLR had to be replaced at around 500 miles. They replaced it and I didn’t have any problems with it.

 

[Dauntless 7]

UPDATE: Shop is replacing the right side axle and all right side axle bearings and seals In the new axle.

Hoping this gets me back on the road with no more issues with the rear axle assembly.

Insane that a brand new axle would have such issues. Quality control wherever these are manufactured is clearly not good.

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