You want to make sure you get scheduled differential service on your car or truck? Why? Well, your car’s differential is key to your vehicle’s performance.
Differential Repair and Why It Is Often Forgotten
Modern cars and trucks are very complex pieces of machinery. Your transmission alone can have as many as 1000 parts. Everyone knows to change their oil at every 5,000 miles, and their transmission fluid at 30,000 mile increments. When someone’s brakes start to squeak, they know to get it into a shop to replace the brakes. But a lot of people overlook their differential. From the site VEHICLEMD.COM, here is some good information about why you may need differential repair and quite soon as well:
“All vehicles have some form of a differential. If you have a front-wheel drive vehicle, the differential is located in the front and is often called the transaxle. However, the transaxle shares the same fluid as your transmission fluid, so there’s no differential fluid for you to change.
“Some vehicles have their differentials in with the transmission,” said Wayne Buckalew, owner of Mobil 1 Lube Express in Thomasville, Alabama. “It’s the same thing, but it’s called the transaxle. You can check your transmission fluid, and your front differential fluid would be that same fluid.”
If you have a rear-wheel drive car, the differential is located in the back. If your car is four-wheel drive, you will have three differentials — one in the front, one in the back and one in the center of vehicle. The center differential is called the transfer case, and it helps adjust for differences in speed between your front and rear wheels.
When you make a turn or go around a curve, your wheels are spinning at different speeds. Your outside wheels must go further and faster than your inside wheels. The differential allows your tires to do that by rotating them at the different speeds needed to maintain stability.
A vehicle’s differential is comprised of multiple gears that will engage to help your outer tires spin faster while turning or disengage when you’re driving straight to allow your tires to rotate at the same speed. Those gears, like any other gear in your vehicle, need to be lubricated to maintain peak performance.
Just like with any other lubricating oil, gear oil for your differential can become dirty and contaminated and needs to be replaced periodically.
“Gear oil is like regular motor oil,” Buckalew said. “When the oil in your differential breaks down, you lose the stability of the oil, which causes wear and tear on your gears.”
So, how do you know when to change your differential fluid? Follow your car manufacturer’s recommendation.
“The engineers who built the differentials in the first place know best how often the fluid needs changed, so you should follow that.” said Jim Mayfield, Brakes and Services manager of Jiffy Lube in Des Moines, Iowa. “Usually, the fluid needs to be changed anywhere from 12,000-50,000 miles, depending on the type of vehicle and the driving conditions. If your differential gets under water, it needs to be done more frequently.” [READ SOURCE ARTICLE]
Repair Your Differential-Be Proactive
It is a good idea to be proactive about differential repair.
So keep up your car. Take your car into a shop that does differential repair in Mesa.
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