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So one day while driving I began to hear a grinding/vibration sound from the front driver side when the car went above about 40 MPH. Pulled over, no sound under 40, and again started over that speed. Sound didn’t change with higher speed. Took it to the shop, they were worried about something with the driver side axle or differential. They take it apart and this is the report:
REMOVED BOTH FRONT AXLES AND FOUND DRIVER SIDE AXLE INTERMEDIATE SHAFT INNER SPLINES SMALLER THAN DIFFERENTIAL SPLINES AND SPINNING FREELY IN DIFFERENTIAL - INCORRECT INTERMEDIATE SHAFT INSTALLED IN VEHICLE
This is a photo of the intermediate shaft from the driver side with the correct part in the background. The passenger side shaft looks like the one in the background photo.
The car has never been in an accident, never had the axle taken out, and the differential miraculously looks fine. The car has like 35k miles. Is it actually possible
it was assembled this way in the factory and just manifested as a problem now??
If the wrong part was installed at the factory, i would take it back to my dealer and ask them to replace it with the correct one under warranty. There should be a part number on the original part. Steel shafts like this don't just miraculously shrink though, so I do not know how this has worked for 5 years and has now failed. I would think this defect would have destroyed either the shaft or the output on the differential or at least made a ton of noise. I guess it is possible if the spline was just a little bit smaller but it should not be able to spin freely.
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