Changing Diff Oil To Prevent Locker Sensor Failure

[Wabujitsu]

My apologies if I missed this, good people. I have spent hours reading posts about locker sensor failure, potting the sensors, etc. I have not found answers to my two questions below.

This is my first question. If you change the diff oil more often, is it possible you will not have particulate metal, suspended in the diff oil, infiltrating the locker sensors, causing sensor failure?

Second question: Do certain gear oils resist high-temperature thinning better, resulting in no contaminated oil penetration of the locker sensors?

I have 28K miles on my JLUR; one trip was about ten hours. I have not had a locker sensor failure, knock on wood. I’m thankful, but curious as to why I haven’t had a failure. I did change the diff oil at about 20K miles, when I had the diff covers pulled and reinstalled with silicone sealer.

Sponsored

 

[Old Dogger]

It is always a good idea, to change the diff lube, to remove contamination!
Any of the major Brand Lubes are good, I use Lucas. Make sure that you use the viscosity that your Owners manual recommends.

 

[Adv_aw8s]

I honestly don't think there is anything you can do to prevent it. I've tried changing my diff oil frequently and I've still had the failure. My mechanic basically told me if you USE your jeep it's going to happen. It's just a poor design.

 

[Maverick909]

You can prevent it from happening. Get the jumper wire for the locker harness and install it. Or keep it in the bag of goodies on board for wheeling. One of the biggest reasons I didn’t buy a rubicon is the locker sensor issue. I have rubi axles on my sport that I run off my aux beam switches. So far zero failure.

 

[Wabujitsu]

So, is it inevitable that I too will have at least one sensor fail? I’m wondering what the failure rate is over x-number of miles.

 

[Terrymo]

@chevymitchell your thoughts?

 

[chevymitchell]

My apologies if I missed this, good people. I have spent hours reading posts about locker sensor failure, potting the sensors, etc. I have not found answers to my two questions below.

This is my first question. If you change the diff oil more often, is it possible you will not have particulate metal, suspended in the diff oil, infiltrating the locker sensors, causing sensor failure?

Second question: Do certain gear oils resist high-temperature thinning better, resulting in no contaminated oil penetration of the locker sensors?

I have 28K miles on my JLUR; one trip was about ten hours. I have not had a locker sensor failure, knock on wood. I’m thankful, but curious as to why I haven’t had a failure. I did change the diff oil at about 20K miles, when I had the diff covers pulled and reinstalled with silicone sealer.

Question 1: Sure, if you change it more often you'll simply lower the amount of metal in the oil. You'll never hit a point where this is zero, however. If you pot the sensor, you can follow the recommended gear oil change intervals and there won't be any special requirement for changing it more often.

Question 2: It's not just the thinning property I would necessarily concern myself with. It would be the sheening property. Either way though, once the sensors are potted, then you won't need to worry about the oil penetrating the sensor anymore. Nearly all failures I've come across after potting have been due to oil getting into the feedthrough connector and contaminating it; shorting out using the pins.

There is no set mileage for the failure. My first JL failed at nearly 45k miles and my second JL failed at 2200 miles.

 

[grimmjeeper]

So, is it inevitable that I too will have at least one sensor fail? I’m wondering what the failure rate is over x-number of miles.

You have a <100% but >0% chance of your sensors failing. It's not inevitable but it can happen. No way to predict what will happen to yours.

Sponsored