Rear axle noise

[MGibbons]

Had my truck at the dealer with a rear axle howl at 50 mph. It sounds like a ring and pinion howl on the drive side of the gears.

Dealer told me they would order a new ring and pinion gear set. A service writer working at this dealer also has a 04 td ram 2500. He had the same noise I have and installed a new rear axle... . no change in noise. Now they tell me a newly designed driveshaft is on order that may correct this noise... ????

 

[Summit]

my tech told me the other day he's had 7 or 8 trucks come in recently for the same thing. asked me about mine, told him i only have 2k on it. he said all trucks have between 5-10k. he said noise wasn't there when new, seems to start around 5k.



got my fingers crossed

 

[EB]

Have had the same noise in mine pretty well since it was new. A lot of people have had the same complaint. You didn't say if you had the limited slip. I think it has something to do with that, don't really have any reason to think that, thats just my opinion. I have over 86,000 miles on mine now and other than the howl, no problem with the rear end.

 

[Don Edmonds]

Well I hate to say I'm Glad that someone else is having the same problem, but I am. I can show my dealer these posts so he doesn't think I'm the only complainer. I have the same noise at 50-55 mph. They told me at 1000 mile to drive it to 5000 miles and see if it was still there. It was! To their credit they ordered a new rear end and installed it about a month ago. Well the damn thing was worse than the original. They thought maybe it was caused by the camper tie downs but that's baloney. At this point I wish I had kept the first one. I'm taking it back in a couple of weeks for another session. This information will help. I have the 3. 73 rear end with anti-slip if anyone cares. Besides the noisy howl the trucks been great, no other problems in about 8k miles

 

[Geoff Allen]

As most are aware this is not an isolated problem. There are some bad gear sets out there, but the majority of the ring & pinion sets have the correct wear pattern. The problem is that they generate noise, (whine on the drive side usually between 60 & 70). I understand that American Axle is telling DC they made the axles to DC specs & if DC provided the wrong spec then too bad. DC is trying to develop a fix for a harmonic whine that is transmitted into the Cab. Understand that DC is not trying to stop the actual "whine", they are trying to stop it from getting to the Cab. Apparently years ago DC had the same problem with Dana Gear Sets in Jeeps, and the "fix" was a "special" driveshaft that dampened the noise. I have the same problem with my truck and so far the Dealer has replaced the driveshaft assembly and all the bearings in the Pod... with no reduction in the whine. DC does not want to replace gear sets or rear ends, because in a lot of cases the whine re-appears, as noted by some of our members. I have been corresponding with other members by PM on this issue, and have heard that DC is actually shrink-wrapping rubber around the driveshaft of a members truck to dampen the whine. No result yet as they are still trying to apply it as per DC Engineering instructions. I along with many others will be very interested to see how this "condom" fix works.

Sorry for the long post.

 

[MGibbons]

Yes mine does have the anti-spin differential.

 

[sag2]

There are two (2500-3500) new "tuned" shafts available for short wheelbase two wheel drive only. I would assume that the others are still in development. If you have one (short 2wd) your dealer should be able to call STAR and get the parts.