Soft axle problems, car at the dealer!

['03BlkMM]

I took my car to an independant shop to have some gears installed today. I told him I wanted to inspect the axles once he got them out. Well he barely pulled the drivers side axle out and told me that I was going to need a new axle. The bearing surface was trashed. The pass side axle was in perfect shape. I took a look at it and told him to put it all back together and I hauled it in to my local Ford dealer. I told them I inspected the axles during a routine axle fluid change and found the problem. Anyway I called them back this afternoon and the service advisor asked me if I was feeling any vibration while driving because the driveshaft was warped. He went on to tell me they're replacing both axles and the driveshaft, he says there is no evidence that the DS has ever been hit. Anybody out there had their driveshaft bent from the factory? This car only has 19k miles and has never been wrecked, I guess it must have been a factory flaw. Anyway here are a couple of pictures of the Drivers side axle bearing surface, nice huh? I can't believe that Ford didn't consider this "soft axle" thing a recall issue...




http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-3/969530/AXLE1.jpghttp://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-3/969530/AXLE2.jpg

[Murader03]

Well, don't know about the driveshaft as I replaced mine with an MMDX when I had the gears installed. But, my axles were just replaced last month due to the issue you photo shows, except, both of mine were like that!

[BillyGman]

Ouch!! That doesn't look too good. I'm glad to hear that you're getting this resolved before the gear change. Good move!!! When I installed my 4.56 gears, my axles didn't look like that. However, my car merely had 4,500 miles on it at the time. I can't help but wonder if the rear end fliud level wasn't filled high enough, and the axles were dry. That's why I like to everything that I can myself. It's just tough to know who you can trust these days!!!!

['03BlkMM]

I can't help but wonder if the rear end fliud level wasn't filled high enough, and the axles were dry.
If this problem wasn't so common on these cars I might agree with you. Not only that but mine had one good axle and one bad. If the lube was low I would think that both would be damaged. Another thing about this is that I've been a steady member at corral.net since 1997 when I bought my Mustang and I've never seen anybody post anything about this problem over there on the modular SOHC forum.

[BillyGman]

[QUOTE='03BlkMM]. If the lube was low I would think that both would be damaged. QUOTE]Yes, probably. Unless the suspension height is slightly different from one side to the next. But it was just something I threw out there. it might not have had anything to do with that. I dunno.

[Murader03]

Fluid level had nothing really to do with it. Some of the early MM's along with CVPI's got a bad batch of axles, as we share the same rearend. There is a TSB out on the problem. Mine went about 74K before they started to growl.

[Krytin]

There was a TSB issued on this for the '03 models along w/CV's TC's & GM's. Improper heat treating/hardening.

[Glenn]

Yes, this problem is covered under a Ford TS bulletin for CV and GM (includes MM). I had both my axles and bearings replaced uner warranty (but not for your reason). There is a specific Ford repair kit for this problem. Concerning the drive shaft, I would recommend to all MM owner's to have their drive shafts balanced. I had a bad growl which Ford thought was the axles and bearings and it turned out to be just an unbalanced drive shaft. Total cost to balance - $30.00 and no growl or vibration to 100+.

Bent drive shaft - I doubt it unless you hit something. The noise and vibration would be very noticeable. I would guess it is some mechanics describtion for an unbalanced drive shaft unless he gave you more details.

Glenn

['03BlkMM]

Got the car back from the dealer today. Its much quieter now, I didn't realize how much noise was coming from the axle. They ended up replacing both axles/bearings/seals, the driveshaft and both rear brake rotors. The ticket said the rear rotors were damaged but didn't say in what way. The ticket also said the runout on the old DS was .075".