That much rust on the rear housing seems un-natural....I'm thinking that the rusting from the UJ back has some other scientific reason....something to do with salt and electrolysis and static electricity from a high speed driveshaft. It is interesting that the rear axle housing and the leafpacks are isolated from the rest of the frame by rubber spring bushings. The leafpacks were rusted badly also?
edit---oops...forgot the Runners here have the coils....cancel that thought about rubber bushing isolation....

This concept of rust is unfamiliar to us guys down here in Arizona. Sounds like someone could make good money sending bare axle housing back to the New England states. I just gave away a 1997 rear Runner housing that had no trace of rust and still had the factory stickers on it for free to a local here.

 

Dude... That makes me cry a little bit. I paid so much money for one.

You want to give another one away for free, you just let me know. There are a couple guys up here that will need one soon enough.

 

ManyMods you need to report this to NHTSA if you didn't already. My rear end is almost rotted to the point of leaking and the frame had to be repaired due to rust. The more we tell our stories the more chance Toyota may be forced to do something.

 

I absolutely agree with what you are saying. My dealer owner is a friend of mine and he went to bat for me with Toyota. They refused his request for compensation, and they are turning their back on this for now. Initially, they tried to pass this off as 'Cape Cod Crud” but, the fact of the matter is based on communications from Yotatech members, this is NOT an endemic problem; it reaches all locations coast-to-coast. After Toyota denied that this was an ‘issue’, the service manager contacted all of his sources in the south west and west coast and no one had a ‘good’ used axle housing. My mechanic here had already tried junk yards around the state. There are none to be had, when in the past you could find one. Clearly, that means the incidence level is increasing and other people have bought up the good housings.

You will not be pleased with what I am about to say, but I don’t have the time to start a campaign with Toyota on this issue, not that I am made of money. I am not! In the past I went after GM on a POS Corvette I bought and American Motors on a ’79 Jeep I bought that was rusting when I took delivery (grew up driving Jeeps). To make a long story short, after they agreed to fix all the rust and repaint the vehicle ‘Corporate’ asked me to please never buy another one of their vehicles. I have honored that and have never owned another Jeep vehicle.

I am okay with getting my vehicle repaired the way I did, and as much as I love my Gen 3 4Runner I want to figure out a way to get a new 2012 4Runner if I can. I like the look of it and from what I can tell it is the right replacement for the one I have now. The only problem is that I did so many things to customize mine that the dealer would have to take it to auction so I would lose big $$$ time. I would probably have to trade in my Avalon too in order to make this work right now. I will not have a car payment. My 4R fits me like a ‘snug’ glove and it still looks great. Paying $30K plus cash for a vehicle and immediately putting an additional ~$10K into it makes it harder to part with it, if you know what I mean. I do want to say one thing in defense of Toyota; they run forever and are practically maintenance free. I bought a ’95 Corolla as a used rental car and with 168K miles on it, the damn thing won’t die. It got one of my kids through college and now my wife prefers driving it to the Avalon. She just crushed a deer with it and I just repaired the front end damage. I call it her little ‘road warrior’. But she has to learn that deer travel in two’s, so when the first one crosses the road – wait! 

Hey, if and when I sell it you guys may reap the benefit because I have a full set of custom Addco sway bars, custom end links, bushing and an in the box TRD exhaust system that I was saving as ‘spares’.

BTW, my dealer is still replacing frames on Taco’s. Can you believe it! Toyota’s problems are not over by a long shot so stay tuned and you will see when they announce the next rust recall.

I want to thank the members who responded to my quiry and offered their opinions and experience with this problem. Keep your receipts because you may have recourse if and when Toyota has to deal with this problem.

 

Scraped off rust flakes, found a 1"x1" nearly square hole about 2" below the parking brake wire harness.

Then drained the rear diff, thank God the drain plug came out.

Cleaned up all the rust with a scraper then wire brush drill bit down to fresh metal.

Applied J-B Weld. That was allowed to cure for one hour. Then realized the fill plug was so badly rusted and the bolt was stripped- thank perhaps to rusting and/or Jiffy Lube mechanics who worked on changing my diff fluid a few years back.

Had to drill a hole above the fill bolt to pump in 2.6 quarts of gear oil. J-B welded shut the artificial fill hole.

Hoping for the best. I am unsure of my best move: should I sell it privately? Should I wait to see if there will be some sort of Toyota recall this far out?

:p issed::pis sed::pisse d:

 

For as much dough as said above swap some frickin 1-tons in.

or rock assualt housings.
There is no way i would pay that for a stock rear end.

 

I know it's a while later....wanted to add that the same thing happened to mine! My friend said he's only seen this 2x...now 3, with the OP's. Rotted right out.

We got a complete rear axle with lockers my friend wanted, so I trade them to him in exchange for a day of help! We got the new housing in, new U-bolts were needed. Used my axles. The whole thing cost $100.....I'd say that was a pretty good deal!

 

friend called me the other day and said his DIFF was rusting out at the pinion flange. another cape codder....

manymods.. u must have the sickest runner on that little island. allways wanted to explore out there

 

sounds unlucky to me

 

sounds like not inspecting the vehicle's underneath for years

 

Inspect Inshmect. You can inspect, clean, oil spray till the cows come home. Iron oxide wins every time.

 

Move to the dessert. Problem solved.

 

Haha. Good point though. No rust or rot on my 97. Just make sure the ac works well.