I took my truck in for transmission work a few weeks ago. The bolts had stripped on the flex plate, a piece had broken off and took out the torque converter. Fast forward to yesterday ... my wife was driving my truck and called me to say that it wouldn't move. Had it flat-towed to the dealer. The dealer calls today and says that basically the front differential grenaded. It appears that the ring gear may have been bent or warped and was grinding off the teeth. The dealer thinks this may have, in turn, placed undue stress on the flex plate and torque converter cause the first issue described above. I hadn't driven the truck for a couple days, but had not previously noticed any of the typical noises that might be associated with grinding off ring gear teeth.

Anyone else seen anything like this? I can't imagine what would have caused it other than a faulty gear set from the factory. No work has been done on the diff - other than changing the fluid - and no reports of metal filings in the fluid when I had it changed.

2005 Ram, Quad Cab with 3.73's and automatic trans.

 

Find another Dealer............ That is about as tinfoil a theory as I have ever heard.

Bet the front ran out of oil, seized up.

How long ago did you have the gear lube changed in it?

 

There was plenty of oil in the diff. I had the diff oil changed a little over 3000 miles ago. There was enough oil in the diff yesterday morning to leave drops on my driveway. Nothing significant but enough that I called my wife to warn her to watch for a puddle. (She didn't.)

Anyway ... the dealer said there was still plenty of oil in the diff. I just stopped by the dealer to take a look at it. The Pinion shaft is bent badly. It appears that the pinion bearing failed and took everything with it. My wife was driving the truck and probably didn't notice any noises until the differential seized up.

 

At any point in time has the pinion seal ever been replaced?

 

Good question!

 

Nope, no work done on the front diff whatsoever ... zero, nada. The only time the front diff was ever touched was to change the fluid.

Can't find any TSB's for either of the axles or diff's so apparently this isn't a "pervasive" issue.

 

Are you sure that the oil in the front differential was replaced with gear lube and not motor oil? If the oil in the front differential was accidentally replaced with motor oil, it could have caused the gears to burn up. Other possibilites are that the pinion nut could have backed off allowing play in the pinion gear to strip the ring gear.

 

The fluid that leaked out seemed more like the consistency of gear oil than motor oil.