Karl

Greetings everyone!
As this is my first post, I hope some of you may find this of interest. I‘m also interested to find out if anyone else has encountered a similar problem. Has anyone else heard of any front differential support problems? Well I have! And it wasn’t pretty! I’ll try to keep this brief but bear in mind I’m also venting 3 weeks worth of frustration. It all started with a nice little snow. And after a few more days of blowing on top of it, I figured it was time to find out what I could, or could not, get through. Well I found a nice 200’ long snow drift that was deep enough to get it packed pretty tight under the running boards. As I was very close to home, with a tractor nearby, I wasn’t too worried not being able get unstuck. I went in with a little momentum, doing ok, but intentionally let it slow to the point where I stopped moving forward. Now growing up in this kind of stuff, I know how to rock, and finesse a stuck vehicle. Yeah, it took some rocking. But I got it out and back to the house. I had left it outside in the driveway, and about an hour later, moved it back into the garage. When I walked back out, I was horrified to see a whole lot of oil on the white snow. I tried to convince myself it was from something else. Nope… It was me. Had it towed to the dealer the next day.

Now here’s what happened. The stress from the rocking, broke the passenger side front differential support assembly, which in turn allowed for a lot more than normal engine movement when torqued. Enough in fact to let the oil pan come in contact with one of the bracket’s bolts, and poke a nice little hole in it.

Now this is when the fun starts! The next day I get a call from the dealer saying I need to give them my insurance info because this damage was caused by my abuse and it would not be covered under warranty. Wrong I say! I know something’s not right with this picture. The girl that checked it in called me, and insisted that it was caused by me hitting something. Ok now… this damage is above the skid plate… was the skid plate damaged?... No it wasn’t. Don’t you think if I hit something hard enough to do that kind of damage that there be some other signs of external damage? Like a missing wheel or something! Well she said maybe I should come take a look at it myself. Yeah… I think that would be a good idea. Now when I looked at it… it didn’t take me very long to figure out what happened. The section of the bracket that broke, is shaped like an “I” beam. And you could see on this exposed cross section of the break, that about 80% of it was rusted. And only around the edges, was the metal fresh and shiny. This tells me that this bracket has probably had a fracture for quite some time. Long enough to get good and rusty. Then when I rocked the truck, the 20% or so that was holding the bracket together, finally gave way. To no avail, I very nicely tried to explain my theory to her. Now get this. She asks me if I changed the oil myself. I said yes. But I’m wondering why she is asking me this. Then she asks me if I accessed the filter from the top or the bottom? I said the top, because that is where it is! Then she said, well, some people try to get under it so they can keep from dripping oil. I said, but the oil filter sits in this nice little catch basin that is designed to catch any oil from the filter. Now I’m really becoming confused as to why I’m being drilled about how I change my oil. Then she finally asked me if I jacked the vehicle up, that maybe I had the jack under the support bracket and that could have broken it. I just about came unglued when she said that! I had to turn and walk away at that point. So after waiting about an hour for the service manager to return, I tried again to explain the whole thing to him. All he can say is that someone from the district office in Chicago would have to take a look at it to make a decision.

Lots of frustrating delays at this point. The dealer can’t get the rep from Chicago to look at it because he’s moved to another region. The new rep is on vacation for a week during the transition. The oil pan had to be ordered and will have to come from Japan. But I am not going to back down! At this point I’m really happy I kept my Ram. Because at 140K, it’s still running strong, without any problems! You can bet I let them know that!.

Finally, the rep in Chicago talks to an engineer in California who says, “Oh yeah. We’ve seen this happen on a couple of others”. I’m told that the brackets have since been redesigned, and two new ones are on the way. The oil pan finally makes its way across the ocean, and I’m back on the road again. The whole thing took exactly three weeks to get straightened out.

I just thought maybe I should say something in case this happens to anyone else. Don’t let them BS you if it does. There. Sorry about the length of the post but... I feel better now.
Thanks for listening.
Karl.

4RUNR

The joys of owning the first year.

mt_goat

Thanks for the post. Just to confirm this is on a 2003 4-runner right? Do you have any pics you could post of the broken parts?

Karl

Yes it is a 2003 4Runner. With less than 10k miles at the time. I hope this picture shows it better.

mt_goat

Thanks again, I see it now. The I beam or H beam support looks like a cast iron part from the picture, is that right?

NCSU-4runner

i find it amazing that you could accumulate enough rust in ONE YEAR to completely destroy a cross brace on the front diff/frame that bad. Those parts take alot of force holding the front diff in place so i imagine its relatively beefy. There had to be something inherently wrong with it to begin with. I've never inspected the front end of the new models but this story really blew my mind. I'm with you 100%, this is something THEY need to fix. Its only one year old !

mt_goat

I think he was saying that the part cracked well before it broke and he could tell what part of the cross section was a new break because of the surface rust on the old cracked section.

Karl

That's exactly what I meant to say. It looked a stress fracture, probably starting as a manufacturing defect. It's not a perfect world... sometimes things just don't come out right! It is a cast piece and I've seen those kind of failures on other castings. I just found it interesting that the Toyota engineer did admit to this particular piece as having been re-designed, for whatever the reason.

mt_goat

If you have time a pic of the new redesigned brace would be helpful. Thanks

Karl

Sure. I'll try to get back under the next day or two.