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In the last couple of weeks I’ve noticed a slight squeaking noise that appears to come from the rear wheels (audible to both driver and front passenger on each side of the vehicle). It is a bit like the sound you occasionally get from an annoyingly squeaky hatch door. It starts when doing about 25mph and by the time I get up to 60mph you can’t hear it over the wind noise. It is only audible when the windows are down (‘so keep the windows up!’). As the speed increases it gets closer to a high pitched whirr – a bit like you get with a loose fan belt but not so loud or grating. The noise only starts when I take my foot of the accelerator and is not associated with a reduction in speed – it literally switches off and on as I put my foot on / lift my foot off the pedal. A previous post described a similar symptom and the cause in that case was the rear diff (I’m well out of my depth here). When I described this to the mechanic this morning over the telephone his first thought was also that it was the rear diff. I’m taking it in on Thursday to have it looked over. When I pressed for a worst case scenario (replace the rear diff) he said that it costs £1500 for a Ford Transit and I could expect it to be more for a Toyota. However, as well as saying it might just be something needing greased, he also said that some vehicles run for years with varying degrees of rear diff noise. He suggested that if it failed while driving then I would simply have no power to the drive train (if that doesn’t make sense then it is due to my misinterpretation of what he said – basically the car would stop moving). I also interpreted this as meaning there would be no serious secondary damage – such as you can expect (apparently) if your timing belt fails.
I would greatly appreciate views on the following:
1. Does it indeed sound like the rear diff?
2. While I have absolutely no reason not to trust the mechanic is there anything simple and obvious I could do to check myself?
3. Does the repair price sound right? I seriously dread the thought of having to find what could be close to £2K.
4. If I were to take a chance and just keep driving it, is my assumption about there being no secondary damage in the event of a failure a reasonable one? In this case would I have to drive the vehicle super carefully or would sensible driving be fine (by which I mean sticking to the speed limit and avoiding hammering the car with hard acceleration or breaking)? While the noise has been appearing quite consistently, this evening there was hardly any noise at all – just momentarily when I first removed my foot from the accelerator.
Any other constructive suggestions are welcome.
If I’ve no star then it’s a timing issue – I’ve paid my subs.
I would greatly appreciate views on the following:
1. Does it indeed sound like the rear diff?
2. While I have absolutely no reason not to trust the mechanic is there anything simple and obvious I could do to check myself?
3. Does the repair price sound right? I seriously dread the thought of having to find what could be close to £2K.
4. If I were to take a chance and just keep driving it, is my assumption about there being no secondary damage in the event of a failure a reasonable one? In this case would I have to drive the vehicle super carefully or would sensible driving be fine (by which I mean sticking to the speed limit and avoiding hammering the car with hard acceleration or breaking)? While the noise has been appearing quite consistently, this evening there was hardly any noise at all – just momentarily when I first removed my foot from the accelerator.
Any other constructive suggestions are welcome.
If I’ve no star then it’s a timing issue – I’ve paid my subs.
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