12 to 18 month wait for new vehicle!!

[ovrszd]

Only getting 50k miles out of it means there is a problem other than just a bad u joint.

Sometimes you gotta dig deeper than surface level.

And no, I dont work at a dealer. I wouldn't wish being a mechanic on my worst enemies. Horrible industry. Horrible pay.

My Son is a self employed mechanic. Makes excellent money. But has some really bad days sometimes dealing with new technology.

And yeah, jstpssng had a mechanical problem other than grease.

 

[sd455dan]

Yeah, NEVER buy a car or truck from Carmax or similar dealers. My son is an ASE mechanic, works for a nationwide "mobile mechanic" company. Most of those vehicles are "warrantied by third party" companies. The dealers do the bare minimum in prep before selling the vehicles, letting the warranty company to take the hit.
He has gone out to jobs that he couldn't believe how they tried to 'fix' the issues before the sale. He says about a 50/50 crap shoot to get a good vehicle. He says a lot of the customers return the vehicle when they find out how bad they are.

I considered buying from Carmax after my nephew bought a Chevy Volt from them.
I think for me to consider it would have to be like the nephews deal a LOW mile like under 30,000 mile 1-3 year old vehicle and then have it gone over with a fine tooth comb.
The Volt has been trouble free and has rolled up a lot of miles in the last few years.
That does not mean I do not believe the horror stories at certain facilities.

 

[Jstpssng]

My Son is a self employed mechanic. Makes excellent money. But has some really bad days sometimes dealing with new technology.

And yeah, jstpssng had a mechanical problem other than grease.

Then WHY was it always dry, until I started doing it my way? WHY were they only lasting a month, until I started fixing it my way?
And if I had more problems, WHY did it not manifest with more problems, before I sold it with 197k miles... and delivered it?

I was there, nobody else was. The reason it only lasted 50k miles is because I decided that rather than pull the drive shaft every month/4000 miles to grease the stupid joint; after initially packing it with grease I ran it until it needed to be changed again.

 

[sd455dan]

No. The joint was so tiny that they couldn't put a grease fitting in the center. Instead, it was on the outside end cap and grease wasn't getting to all 4 caps. As I said before I finally learned to take the drive shaft out to grease it; but doing that after work once a week got old fast.

The dealer who I went to a couple of times said the same thing; yet if the drive shaft was messed up it would vibrate going down the road. What I couldn't understand was why that wasn't covered under the power train warranty.

Way back when...
My J-10 Jeep truck with Q trac ate front U joints every 5k.
I was using GMB joints from Oreilly's. they had lifetime warranty. Finally went to NAPA and bought CR (Chicago Rawhide) and also a SPICER that they had in stock that day.
No more failures with either. GMB was selling soft steel, junk low quality units that just flat wore really badly.
Now I always buy SPICER if available, or for my RAM factory AAM joints.

 

[Oaktree]

What I couldn't understand was why that wasn't covered under the power train warranty.

Dealerships are very good at weasling out of fixing things under warranty. The '08 turdra I had for a company truck at my last job had several transmission/transfer case issues. Never covered because supposedly they were "electrical", not drivetrain problems. At least I wasn't the one paying for the repairs.

 

[Oaktree]

And yeah, jstpssng had a mechanical problem other than grease.

I'm inclined to agree. I've had 2 Dakotas with ~400k between them and never had any sort of driveshaft problems.

 

[ovrszd]

Then WHY was it always dry, until I started doing it my way? WHY were they only lasting a month, until I started fixing it my way?
And if I had more problems, WHY did it not manifest with more problems, before I sold it with 197k miles... and delivered it?

I was there, nobody else was. The reason it only lasted 50k miles is because I decided that rather than pull the drive shaft every month/4000 miles to grease the stupid joint; after initially packing it with grease I ran it until it needed to be changed again.

I'm not arguing. I'm simply saying, there was something going on much worse than the Grease zerk being in the cap. That's not uncommon.

Again, my 23 year old SD has 280K miles on it with 3 non greasable joints still intact.

We can paint that whatever color we choose. Fact still remains that there was a design flaw in your truck beyond the zerk location. Mine don't have zerks.....

 

[Jstpssng]

I'm not arguing. I'm simply saying, there was something going on much worse than the Grease zerk being in the cap. That's not uncommon.

Again, my 23 year old SD has 280K miles on it with 3 non greasable joints still intact.

We can paint that whatever color we choose. Fact still remains that there was a design flaw in your truck beyond the zerk location. Mine don't have zerks.....

OK, a design flaw I will agree with. Bad drive shaft as some others have said won't fly. I believe that it was the size of the joint itself; it was a little tiny thing, I don't recall how big.

 

[hiddentacocatneddih]

If it was a design flaw,the issues would be more wide spread and at catastrophic as you explained your was, it would be more widely talked about.

This is an issue with your truck and who ever worked on it

 

[ovrszd]

OK, a design flaw I will agree with. Bad drive shaft as some others have said won't fly. I believe that it was the size of the joint itself; it was a little tiny thing, I don't recall how big.

Those are common as well. I'll go with a driveshaft flaw that stressed the joint.