got a tacoma 2002 4x4.. i talked with one of the shop guys at a less reputable toyota place and he said you shouldnt have to grease the drive shaft fittings every 20-30k miles... i was like wtf? i was like dude the books calls for every oil change.. he said they self seal and would be fine.. personally grease them at every oil change!!

 

Just get under there and grease them yourself.....you'll probably do a better job anyway.

 

oh i do. i dont trust a lot of people. i have this URRRR'ing noise going down the highway so i just called and asked what could be going on.. my guess is grease the drive shafts and the rest is tire noise i think.. not sure though. its been 5k miles since i greased the fittings, sometimes i may skip one by accident too

 

Can't over-grease a driveshaft sleave, anyway. It'll squeeze out what doesn't need to be in there. Grease the hell outta everything, it's cheap insurance. Oh, spend a penny more and get the moly-graph, or that new synthetic junk.

 

moly-graph?? and i may use that synthetic junk once my regular junk is gone haha

 

mmmmmmmm molybdenum & graphite
slippery stuff

 

sounds interesting

 

You CAN actually overgrease the driveshaft. It may not be an issue for those with manual transmissions but I remember a thread where the automatic tranny had problems moving in and out of park because of overgreasing.

I've never greased my d-shaft for over 20,000 miles now and it's seen some good abuse. I keep saying that I'll grease it someday but never get around to it. Take it for what's it worth, but then again I don't have any issues with my truck.

 

i have a bad u-joint on another car and i just keep regreasing.
usually good for ~1000mi. till it gets noisy again. damn im lazy

 

Slip yokes usually have a vent hole so that the air has somewhere to escape when you start pumping in the grease. The vent also come into play during suspension extension and compression of the yoke. If that vent is clogged (usually with crud) and the yoke is packed full of grease, pressurization will occur during suspension compression. Automatics are of course more sensitive to this kind of pressure.

As for overgreasing the u-joints, there are several schools of thought on this. Some say that you should only pump in enough grease until you observe the seals swelling - no easy task since you have very limited visibility of the seals. If you pump in enough grease to where it comes out of a seal, the seal is breached and has potential to let dirt and water back in.

Others contend that anything less than grease oozing out in significant quantities is under-lubricating the bearings. The seals will reseat properly once the excess grease gets slung out due to the centrifugal force.

Bottom line is too little or too much is better than none at all.

 

when i grease mine, its ooozing out till i see the colors change from dark to whatever color the grease it.. i do this every 5k miles or so and i can tell that it reseals itselft bc you will hear the popping noise of the grease coming out.. thats my take.