The carrier bearing sounds and looks a little weak . Can you hold the rear shaft and then the front shaft and see if there is any play in the universal joint..

Those symptoms doesn’t sound like a driveshaft issue to me. Mine only had a vibration if I launched it hard at full throttle. Half throttle, no vibration. You can hear it in this video.


Mine wasn’t this bad and nothing noticeable while driving and or turning.

Carrier bearing seems normal from your video

I did try to hold the rear end of the shaft and then wiggle the front end to see if the U-joint has any play but it didn't feel or sound like it. To me, it sounds like there is something clinging inside the shaft. I also watched Jafro's video and it definitely doesn't sound like anything there.

I just haven't had another AWD car and I have no experience with driveshafts and what they should sound and move like when normal.

Kryndon said:

I did try to hold the rear end of the shaft and then wiggle the front end to see if the U-joint has any play but it didn't feel or sound like it. To me, it sounds like there is something clinging inside the shaft. I also watched Jafro's video and it definitely doesn't sound like anything there.

I just haven't had another AWD car and I have no experience with driveshafts and what they should sound and move like when normal.

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I did hear that clinging noise too when you knocked on the shaft which seemed odd. When I had the rear diff out, I wasn't sure if this noise in the video was normal so I asked the community and conclusion was that it was normal.


Also, I don't think there's a load change on the driveshaft when making turns. Check your tires. If they're choppy, it can cause that type of noise/vibration. Not sure if this will help or not but it's worth a shot. Put the car on jack stands and bring it up to speed and turn the wheel. Maybe it'll happen in the air???

Tony I'm starting to think more and more it may be the tires. All my other friends and mechanic friends also think it's most possible the tires. And frankly they are just placeholder winter tires which are very old and worn; I'm just rolling on them because I'm about to store the car longterm.

I rotated the tires by swapping fronts to rears, and now the sound is a bit less pronounced but it's coming from the rear. So I'm thinking it may just have been the front tires making the noise. But then again, it only makes it on right-hand turns. If it was really just from the tires, surely they would be noisy regardless of cornering?

The other possibilities are wheel bearings which do not have play but have worn in such a way that they only make noise and vibration. That really can't be diagnosed unless I find a wheel rolling machine like they use on semi trucks, and I don't really want to start blindly replacing wheel bearings.

Worst case is the tranny/tcase/diff, but I've been changing their oils with the manual recommended Diaqueen regularly so I'm counting that out.

Guess what I could try to do is find a set of 4 wheels with good tires from a friend or something and try them on just to see if the noise goes away.

Kryndon said:

Tony I'm starting to think more and more it may be the tires. All my other friends and mechanic friends also think it's most possible the tires. And frankly they are just placeholder winter tires which are very old and worn; I'm just rolling on them because I'm about to store the car longterm.

I rotated the tires by swapping fronts to rears, and now the sound is a bit less pronounced but it's coming from the rear. So I'm thinking it may just have been the front tires making the noise. But then again, it only makes it on right-hand turns. If it was really just from the tires, surely they would be noisy regardless of cornering?

The other possibilities are wheel bearings which do not have play but have worn in such a way that they only make noise and vibration. That really can't be diagnosed unless I find a wheel rolling machine like they use on semi trucks, and I don't really want to start blindly replacing wheel bearings.

Worst case is the tranny/tcase/diff, but I've been changing their oils with the manual recommended Diaqueen regularly so I'm counting that out.

Guess what I could try to do is find a set of 4 wheels with good tires from a friend or something and try them on just to see if the noise goes away.

Click to expand...

When I was at the dealership, we’d get so many noise complaints and I’d say about half of them turned out to be tire noise. You can switch the tires left to right in the rear and see if it changes. If they’re real winter tires, it’s just the nature of the beast. Also, If there’s a big difference in camber from front and rear, it’ll take some time for the tire to wear down and noise should go away.