aas

While this sucks for me, I think this incident could be good for others with broken axles:

I drove to Charleston, SC from eastern NC Sunday afternoon. The whole trip down there I kept thinking that a weight must've come off my wheel. Once or twice, it felt like my Jeep was about to blow off the road.

The next day I heard a ticking that sounded much like what I had heard and ignored the night before the driver's side axle failed. Upon inspection, this is what I found on the passenger's side:





The significance of this is that I was not off-road and had not taken the thing out on the trail since that first axle broke 20,000 miles ago. Another thing to note is that it's pretty apparent that U-Joint just "fell apart" -- had I been putting any stress on it in 4wd, I'm sure the whole axle would've self-destructed.

This dealership is much friendlier than the last one I dealt with. They arranged for me to get a rental car to get me back to NC, and they're appealing to DC to have my entire front assembly replaced. The techs there said they've seen a lot of the new Jeeps seriously wheeled, lifted and rock crawling -- but they've never seen an axle fail, let alone *both* axles failing.

Here are links to my earlier posts:

https://www.jk-forum.com/forums/stock-jk-tech-12/broken-front-axle-9004/

https://www.jk-forum.com/forums/modified-jk-tech-2/jk-caster-28878/

Renegade

The problem you have encountered probably accounts for most of the breakage people are seeing on JKs. The retaining clips work themselves out, then the u-joint spits the caps out, leading to axle failure. The real solution would be for Dana or Chrysler to redesign the shafts to accept full circle clips. Another solution would be for people to machine them themselves to accept full circle clips. Another solution is to have the u-joint caps tack welded to the axle shaft yokes. I had the caps tack welded on mine, but the welds have broken from the ears on the yokes flexing. The welds are still there on mine keeping the caps in, even though they can spin. Good luck with yours, but I dont' think a new axle assemply will fare much better.

jkkat

Thats wierd, my right side went bad as well, hmmmmmmmm..............

Piginajeep

I have spares if anyone wants to buy them

aas

It's at Hoover.

2K1TJ

Dang, you guys are scaring me!!

>>>>>>digging in couch cusions for change to add to my D44 swap jar<<<<<<<<

Marauder

Had the right side ujoint caps come off on mine with less than 4000 miles on the jeep and only on serious of road trip.

deanthemachine04

that sucks it happened once, but twice! at least the dealer agreed to fix it. i guy i just wheeled with had the same thing happen and the dealer wouldnt warranty it! i guess that "trail rated" badge is just for show!

Demo-nut

What size axels/tires were you running?

aas

I'd send him a link to this thread. There's enough here to make a case. I personally think that Jeep should send out a notice that this should be warranteed -- I could see it costing repeat business, especially from first-time owners.

On a side note, the dealership told me yesterday that the axle is backordered w/ 11 units ahead of it. I'd say that it's fair to say that there are at least 11 other JKs with broken right-side axles waiting for replacements.