A local mechanic advised me that the Superior gears are not a quality product compared to other manufacturers. Also said they have been advised by their distributor that they are known to be very noisy and there is a trail of customer complaints.

This info appears to be not aligned with the feedback on this board from everyone gearing up to 4.88's and 5.13s. I am being miss informed or are there issues with these gears?

I appreciate any guidance on this question.

thanks

 

Interesting. The guy I have lined up to do the gears, who owns his own place, and pretty much the only thing he does now is gears says that they're the best.

This should be interesting.

 

This sounds like it's coming from someone who doesn't know how to set pinion gear depth correctly. If the gear depth is not right, it will be noisy on either accel or deccel. I'd find another installer.

 

There were some pattern issues with some of the early superior sets for the JK, but I think those have been resolved. Perhaps that is where he got his impressions. Superior made its name on axles anyway and not gears.

Few if any other gear makers such as Motive and Precision have stepped yet and made gears for the JK. The will though.

 

Superior was the first to get the JK gears to market. They have had alot of noise issues with them that is why they have been working on adding another process to the manufacturing of their gears to help quiet them down.

There have been many unhappy customers that have been stung by the cost of labor to replace the gears that were too noisy. Not every set has had problems and setting up gears is not hard to do for a established shop.

If you run a hardtop with low noise tires (all-terrians) then you will have a much better chance of noticing the noise that some superior gears have. I know about the noise first hand because I have some very noisy gears that were installed by one of the top gear techs in the area. I have also met at least 5 other JK owners with superior gears that have some type of noise. Mainly decel whine.

If you can wait a few weeks Alloy Usa will have their gears ready and they have always had the best product and customer service. If you choose superior it will be hit or miss and on your dime for labor if you want another set installed if you are not happy.

 

I just had some superior 5.13's installed and the shop said everything looked perfect but i still have a whine on deceleration. One guy told me that i didn't even need to drive my jeep because they were to tight and would lock down if they got to hot. Im changing to royal purple today and will let you know if that helps the noise.

 

Whining on deceleration is due to improper install. I also have the 5.13 and they are very quiet.

My installer also told me that the quality of Superior gear finish was not the greatest. My installer is a 30 year expert axle rebuilder, including rebuilding rear ends for heavy equipment. He showed me the difference between a Spicer gear and my Superior gear. Man, the diference in the quality of machining of the teeth is quite noticeable... superior had toothe edges that had not been completely de-burred. Presumbably, use will eventually smooth them out.

Notwithstanding, the superior gear works fine and seems to be pretty strong.

 

Yes, if installed wrong you will have noise..... My are good so far, no noise.

 

Exactly, Superior is all I used on the race car, full spooled Ford 9", 97 Camaro SS putting down 550rwhp running in the 10s all motor, there was absolutely no noise and they held up no problem, sure in a soccer mom engined JK they will be just as good . And yes as stated above by RedneckJeep if the pinion depth isn't correct then you will usually get noise, premature wear, failure, the list goes on.

 

Just got my Jeep back yesterday with my new 4.88s installed and I don't notice any noise. I am also running Royal Purple.