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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ต.ค. 2024
- 2 transfer cases, both out of 2016 Toyota Highlander's. Both are experiencing the same issue with the pre-load nut on the output shaft tightening up on it's own. What's going on here? Really interested in hearing from any Toyota techs.
Hey Rich, have you had a chance to make another video on the process of the removal of the transfer case? I need to replace the one in my car and not much info out there on how to do it. Any assistance would be appreciated. Thanks.
OK man you're killing me not having that "separate video" showing the removal process....😛 So I came across your video looking for answers on my family's 2008 Highlander Sport 4WD with it's recently failed Transfer Assembly... That car has been my younger son's college car in PA for a couple of years now and just over Easter when he was back home (in MA, and thank GOD for that) it started making a nasty noise at low speed. It was a dududududududu noise that increased with speed. I knew it was bad whatever it was. Looked under the car, found a broken bolt on one of the rear control arms, and thought "Oh that's easy enough!" I slowly drove it to my local Toyota dealer (who has done service on it all these years) and after they replaced my two rear lower control arms and bolts, the scary noise was STILL there. Ugh. That repair, along with welding a little steel in where some was rusted away on the mount bracket, and including an alignment, was $1,000. Ugh, because....
The next thing they did was remove the drive shaft to the rear differential, and with the car up on the lift they found the noise coming from the transfer assembly. OK, so it's bad enough that our transmission exploded - literally gears, metal and oil on the ground - at 165K miles 6 years back while going 5 mph in a ski resort parking lot many miles from home. That was a $5,000 repair, well beyond the factory warranty, which gave me nightmares. Thanks, Toyota Corp, for not giving a sh*t. Thanks, Toyota dealer, for your "factory service" where your guys didn't check the transmission fluid during the "multi-point inspection" during oil changes... Pay attention to seepage stains folks!! My mistake as well, but it's not every day I'm putting my family's vehicle fleet up on ramps to do inspections!
Now, here we are at 238,000 miles, with a car I had just put $4,700 into before the Fall semester (new Continental DWS tires, front and rear brake pads and rotors, and I installed: 5 engine mounts, 2 front control arms, sway bar bushings, a new exterior power mirror, and a custom stereo for the kiddo as a gift). The dealership tells me that the cost to replace the transfer assembly with a USED one with 95,000 miles is $4,500, and a new one would run another $1,000. Jeeeeezusss!! The car, with its miles, age and average "good" condition is worth about $5,500 trade in. So, this car that started out as a $36,000 machine in 2008, which has been paid off for 10 years, owes us nothing, and just had $5.7K sunk into it is basically TOTALLED. F*ck me.
Thank you for the video, i drained my 2015 case oil and metal chunks drained out 😬
Oddly enough, it wasn’t making noise but I did have a leak.
The word on this should be spread. Perhaps people out there can still save their cases by pinning them better.
UPDATE: This is exactly what happened to mine as well. Saw it taken apart in the shop and the nut had moved quite a bit which destroyed the bearing. The Mechanic said the same thing.. the nut tightened so much over time that it destroyed itself. There is nothing I could have done to prevent this from happening... Its simply a design flaw by Toyota and I doubt they address it too.
My 2017 Highlanders Transfer case is also shot with only 42000 miles on it. It was just outside the years on the warrantee and Toyota refused any goodwill fix for me. Toyota dealership found metal filings in the oil, they put the blame on me for not getting the oil changed at 30k. and they wanted and arm and a leg to replace the part. Took the car to an independent transmission shop to look at. They verified the same thing, however pointed out the oil in the TC looked brand new. Anyway, I just purchased a new transfer case for $2400 and I'm going to show this video to the guy doing the work and ask him to check the old part to see if the same thing happened. My new part has a year of 2023 on it and looks like its a replacement for an older version. Hopefully they fixed the flaw in the new version. Thanks for the video.
Same problem with my 2012 highlander. Got a transfer case from a junkyard and it didn’t resolve the problem theres still weird sound.
Not a master tech. Been working on jet engines and everything else last 34 years. I think you are correct it tighten up. Clearly a good fix is a better hammer blow giving a little more force to forming the nut to the shaft lock channel notch. This will risk the nut material to crack if the dent is to sharp into the locking notch. Might consider a drilling and screw tap a set pin in the nut instead. Once the nut is back into the correct position. Yea the set pin will crush the shaft threads, but that's way better than having the nut tighten up anytime it wants to.
The transfer case in my wife’s 17 HL had a seal failure band we just got a junkyard t case from eBay and it’s got the same issue as your replacement, mine was a little further along. I peened the snot out of the nut and hopefully it holds together. Also waiting for the removal and video
I'm curious why you didn't re-bearing the original one.
I have to remove my transfer case did you ever film how to remove without engine removal?
In your failed transfer case, the bearing might have stated to lock up, or partially seized, tightening the nut. With the bearing in the condition shown, that's quite plausible.
Not sure if the tightened nut is the root cause or a symptom of the problem.
@ToyotaMaintenance Have you seen this before? Sure looks like both of these moved after the factory torqued them.
So I rambled about my Highlander problems in the comment below, but I'm back to talk about yours. 😉 I agree with you that there's no way someone tore apart your vehicle at some point in time just to over-torque your shaft bearing retention nut. NO way. However, the one thing I mentioned to my dealer about my failed transfer assembly is that - "hey, if you put in a used one from a junk yard, who's to say that the internals on that unit weren't shocked enough from the former car's impact scenario to cause premature failure of one of the bearings or gearsets?" His response was, "Well, that's definitely a believable scenario, but at least the parts come with x number of months of warranty" which he followed up with "but you're still spending thousands in labor to replace it again".. I wanted to scream, even though my voice is deep, and I can't scream.
Your slipped lock nut makes me think your Highlander was either in an impact accident while parked or slowing down, or it was once towed or pushed while all 4 wheels were on the ground, causing the tires to make the shafts spin and eccentric loads were put on the shaft while the trans was in Park. Another thought is that maybe this happened somehow during transit to the dealer you bought it from back in 2016? That maybe something happened in the factory, being loaded on rail or truck, or something that shocked the drivetrain and nobody said anything about it... OR, maybe your rear wheels spun on ice while the fronts had traction and the spinning wheels hit dry pavement, causing driveline shock. Spinning transaxles and gearsets have tremendous inertia, and suddenly stopping them can wreak havoc. Granted it would take an analysis of rotational directions of shafts and gears to determine the plausibility of this, but that's where my mind goes. And one last thing, those lock nuts were NOT staked deeply enough into the shaft lock groove. That's the biggest failure on the part of Toyota, and it's as if there should be a lock groove on both sides of the shaft to prevent this occurrence in the future.
I'm curious to know how this all turned out for you? How long was the tear down and reassembly? And can I tow mine to you and have you do the same? haha Thanks for the informative and thought-provoking video man. Glad to run across you. And those lock nuts - especially on that newer one - were NOT staked deeply enough into the channel.
You have to take a chisel n hammer and indent the mark on the lock knot its suppose to lock to stay in the notch just like the wheel axle bolt
what id do before installing is make sure the nut isn't loose. i never had one of these apart but sometimes there is a reverse thread and you think its tighter but it may really be loosening.
As I own a shop up in Wisconsin, what I would think is that the driver was on ice and hit a patch of asphalt and the torque that is generated from the tire slip caused by the ice then going to no slip is causing this. Just my 2 cents
I'd love to know if there was a sound coming from it what it sounded like it and what not......... I just changed all my wheel bearings thinking that was the issue but the sound is still there so I'm now going to be looking at the trans, transfer case and rear diff. Update: Took mine to Toyota ended up being the transfer case failing early at 140,000kms on my 2017 Kluger. No idea why...... because been very well cared for. But perhaps there is just a design fault.
How much did it cost ? I have same issue with my 2017 kluger , 136k
@@notorious1677 It cost me nothing. Ask for an outside warranty claim so long as its always been serviced they may cover it. Mine was covered but mines going back because I think they damaged my torque converter (long story it fell out cause they were going to fix a rear main seal while they were going).
@@MrHC1983 thanks mate. I was just on various google pages where it says 6-8k and I freaked out . I have manufactures extended warranty . Hope to claim 🙏🏻
@@notorious1677 If they hadn’t approved my claim it was going to be around $4500
Hi , my transfer case was changed but now Toyota found out some electrical fault after fixing transfer case and drive shaft threads . It’s at the showroom from 3 days without clue of what’s the fault
Do you got another video taking it out working on one right now and I can’t get to the bolt on top of it
You have to trim a little off where it's tight with a carbide burr to get a wrench on the bolt, then back off the bolt and cut the bolt with a sawzall. When re-assembling use a stud and nut instead of a bolt in that position. It's still real tight, but better than dropping the whole engine in my opinion. I need to put up a video on it. EDIT: I know there's people that are going to read this comment and say "WTF", but trust me, when you're hours into it and realize how it goes together, you'll change your tune :) I'm a 'use a torque wrench on everything' and only buy OEM parts kind of guy, and the burr and sawzall still came out :)
Facing a r&i my self and wondering if you made a video on it? What length stud did you end up using after cutting the bolt?
Hello. As I mentioned on Reddit, the transfer case output shaft seal was leaking on my 2016 Highlander. The shop replaced the transfer case with one from a 2017 Highlander, so fyi 2017-2019 Highlanders share the same transfer case with 2014-2016 models.
thx .. the FSM would seem to indicate that there was some revisions, but they do look cross compatible from the perspective of bolting them up
The 2014-2016 are mostly the same as the 2017-2019 which was just a model refresh of the front bumper/grill/headlights/taillights.. and then they made the switch over from the 2grfe v6 (2014-2016) to the 2grfks v6(2017-2019) and went from a 6 speed trans up to an 8 speed trans.
Out of curiousity what were other indicators besides the leak?
Was it at the bootseal outside of the case??
What side was it on that failed???
Same noise coming from mine. Money says this is the issue.
let me know what you find. I'm curious. what mileage you at?
is this the new all aluminium transfer case?
casing was all aluminum on mine
Restake it as is and run with it.
thx
Seems we all agree on this. I feel that in it's current slightly over-torqued position it's done whatever excessive wear that might have caused and backing it off will cause slop.
@@InexplicableBill thx, that's what I did. It's back in and has about 1.5k new miles on it and so far it's quiet and smooth.
@@netmagi Well that's what I'd call a happy ending. Did you ever issue a video showing the process? I'm planning to take this project on and curious about the time it took and the pitfalls to look for. I'm not lucky enough to have a garage.
@@InexplicableBill nothing posted yet, but I still intend to and took a fair amt of pics. Personally, I WOULD NOT attempt this without a garage or covered area where the vehicle can be parked and raised for an extended time. Tall jack stands is enough if you don't mind tight spaces, but this it not just a "1 weekend job". I spent several weekends on it and have a pretty wide set of tools/equipment and patience. I also waited on parts twice, for two weeks once, then one week. First time for a seal kit for the transfer case/trans (no point in going all the way in there and not doing seals), and second time for fluids. You're dropping transfer case AND trans fluid in this job. Refilling the trans is a bit of pain. Have to fill while running within a specific temp range for the fluid. Probably the hardest part of the job was getting the CV axle out on the passenger side. Service manual is written like it should just slide out when retainer is removed. Yeh right. I eventually ended up using a brass bar and sledge to knock it out from underneath.