Differential whine fixed!

Thanks to my fellow Vx'ers from the Ocala meet, my differential has been fixed. For those of you that have not followed this, I had a bad differential whine at 60mph and above when on the gas, the dealer tried two new rear wheel bearings, but it didnt help. When I complained again he called in the Isuzu rep. We did a road test and the rep. really insulted my intellegence by saying it was normal and his had the same noise on his personal VX, I basically told him that was BS and his rear end was screwed too, and I had been in Mac trucks quieter. Frankly he was either deaf, a liar or incompetant, and none of the three were forgiveable.
Anyway I decided to go the the local meet and have my fellow VX'ers road test mine. All of them heard the noise, and all verified they did not have it. I had them sign a petition with their vin no. and I notorized six signatures. I took this back to the dealer, who when seeing it, very kindly said he would take care of it. The first week they dropped the diff. and tried shimming and adjusting backlash, put it back together and saw no change. The second week they had Isuzu send a new pinion gear, and installed it. The differential is now very quiet with no associated loud whining. I could not have accomplished this without the help of my fellow VX'iers, so there is strength in numbers. So if your differential makes a whining noise when applying throttle, and goes away when you take your foot off, it is the RING AND PINION, Dont let anyone tell you it's supposed to sound worse than a Mac truck. Thanks again:mbrasd:

OUTSTANDING! Glad to know we were able to help. Kinda figured it was an out-of-spec gear, especially with the load/no load change.

Thanks Joe, what a difference not having to listen to that noise.

Well, I take my hat off to you! That’s a real lesson in consumer’s power! I too hate noises in my car so I totally understand what you were going through. Glad it worked out for you.

Mine's recently started whining when I take my foot off the gas. It started this after I had the tires rotated (and one balanced, because a wheel weight came off). It's also vibrating a bit at certain speeds.

I'm having the differential fluids replaced today with Mobil 1, so I'll see if that helps.

i think my diff is whining but im not 100% sure...ive had it checked out by my mechanic and he says it should be ok....but just to be sure...did your car make a kind of grinding humming sound when u hit the gas?
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Problems With Avandia

It was a high pitched whine foot on the accelerator, no noise foot off, dealer put new gear and bearings in diff. problem solved.

PBR...You're making me worry now. I recently bought my VX used and have noticed a whine just as you are describing with yours (foot on the go pedal=whine, no go pedal=no whine). I think I'm going to do like jbregar and see if changing the oil will help. I'm hoping that the additive is just worn out and the oil back there needs to be replaced. I'm thinking that the person before me didn't go by the recommended maintenance schedule. If that doesn't work though, isn't the rear gears covered by warranty?

yea i have the same whining problem too...hmmm....lets hope its covered under warrenty.....
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Sexy18Girl4U

It was covered by the warranty even though I needed a petiton to get it done, oil additive has nothing to do with it, I am sure mine was not the only vx to have this production problem, go see your dealer

gulp hope it isn't an 01 kaiser silver prob:(

especially since my vx was only 236 trucks ahead of yours on the assembly line...........................

Just had this repaired by the dealer. Thanks to PBR and his info I was finally able to convince the dealer that I actually knew what I was talking about. They decided to just replace the entire rear assembly, which covered the ring and pinion gear and bearings. It did take some patience and more than one call to my Isuzu regional rep.

Just one added note on this. Keep in mind that SOME noise associated with acceleration is normal. I think comparisons with other VXs may be the best way to tell if you have extra noise. But if you don't have access to another VX then you may have to rely on your own driving history with the vehicle. Just don't be shy with the dealers, collect your facts and be persistent.

I recently found out that the dealer the vehicle was purchased from is no longer an Isuzu dealer. They decided to drop that maker and carry Suzuki/Suburu instead. Can you believe that? I have no idea where another place I could take mine to locally. :(

Mine has some whine noise when my foot is at certain position of the accelerator. If I accelerate more or accelerate less the noise is gone and this is noticable at high speed. Is this the noise you guys are talking about?

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Originally posted by iownvx
Mine has some whine noise when my foot is at certain position of the accelerator. If I accelerate more or accelerate less the noise is gone and this is noticable at high speed. Is this the noise you guys are talking about?

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This actually sounds more like "Tire Whine" than a diff whine.. When the gears in the diff whine they will do so when there is a load on them, once the load is taken off, the whine will usually stop or decrease VERY dramatically.
To rid the vehicle of the tire whine you need to create a barrier between you and the source. Usually by adding some type of sound deadener like Dynamat or Brown Bread etc..

I think Dynamating just masks the problem. PBR had the whining gears problem (like many of us do) because of bad gears, bearings, etc. He had all that replaced and now no whine. I believe I have the same problem, but have elected to try changing the gear oil. Least expensive procedure first. I have a feeling this won't work at all because I've had a similar situation happen before with another vehicle I own and the whining problem just became worse as I went along until eventually I had to replace bearing, gears, etc.

By the way, does anyone know what kind of an axle we have? It doesn't look like a GM axle, but more like a Ford 9 inch rear end. Of course I've only seen about 1 or 2 before anyway. (GM guy usually)

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Originally Posted by Clyde

I think Dynamating just masks the problem. PBR had the whining gears problem (like many of us do) because of bad gears, bearings, etc. He had all that replaced and now no whine. I believe I have the same problem, but have elected to try changing the gear oil. Least expensive procedure first. I have a feeling this won't work at all because I've had a similar situation happen before with another vehicle I own and the whining problem just became worse as I went along until eventually I had to replace bearing, gears, etc.

By the way, does anyone know what kind of an axle we have? It doesn't look like a GM axle, but more like a Ford 9 inch rear end. Of course I've only seen about 1 or 2 before anyway. (GM guy usually)

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Oh I do like dusting off a thread from the tombs...:p

Our rear end is an Isuzu corp. 12 bolt, & some day soon (around X-mas time, I hope) I wanna jam an Aussie locker in mine...:smilewink

Let me tell you, 4.77's make some noise! I figure my new mud tires will help mask that humming! :p And just the opposite of the first post... if you start to hear a racket when you take your foot off the gas when going down the highway, it could be the preload on your pinion is too tight or too loose. Either way, the pinion bearings create a lot of noise and a lot of heat when they are out of spec.

OK, I feel much better now. I always thought my VX was loud and honestly I attributed it to tire roar/whine. I figured, well, it's a truck and those 18" tires aren't made to be quiet. But I've had more than one person hear a distinct whine that doesn't sound normal and I already replaced the tires hoping it was them. No change with the new tires. I also put the brown bead in the vehicle as well with very little change. There is a definite on/off effect with the noise with the throttle being used or not used. Hurray, the VX CAN be quieter!
Did anyone establish if this would be covered under warranty and if so, was the warranty transferrable as I'm not the original owner.
Thanks for the great thread!

I am also not the 1st owner of my VX and would like to know if everyone is talking about power-train warranty. If so...is it 10ys 100l miles? And will it transfer to the second owner?

I sometimes compare my VX to a bad marriage...it can sometimes be a love hate relationship. About the time I am ready to sell my VX...it does something great and I continue to keep it.

I've heard the warranty is halved to the second owner (5 yrs.)

A call to the nearest Isuzu dealer with your VIN will tell for sure.

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Originally Posted by ZEUS

Let me tell you, 4.77's make some noise! .

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Thats why I am going to go with 5.38's! ;Dy; :laughy: :rotate:

Yeah, that should be much better! :rolleyes: Bigger gears = bigger stereo!!

per Isuzu's Website, my 2000 VX's warranty was only transferable between family members, oh well, nearly all used cars I've gotten did not have a warranty,
at least now I have something else to fiddle with in the hope of getting the VX more tolerable noise-wise

Joe Isuzu, I don't know your VX at all... if it is lifted and you have some meaty tires and if you are going to have to tear apart your 3rd members you might want to do many things at once. It is such a big job to get the front 3rd out. If you plan ahead and extend the diff brackets and install lower gears to compensate for your larger tires you would be oh so much more efficient and perhaps more pleased. The performance and longevity improvements are worth the time, effort, and expense, IMO. Just a heads up you prob'ly already knew about!

Zeus, allow me to introduce myself, my mechanical experience is very limited except for oil and brake changes and I tend to keep my vehicles as stock as possible except for small performance improvements :)
now, with that said, my VX is about as stock as you can get, the only thing I've done is replace the speakers, replace the brakes/rotors and brown-beaded the cargo hold
I will most definitely NOT be fiddling with doing differential work myself, we want to keep VX's on the road not on a flatbed en route to the dealer, haha
I understand based on my prior comment how you might have thought I was going to do it myself and I appreciate the head's up on other work to be done at the same time, but no, this is definitely something a professional will look at