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Turn in reverse with front locker on = broken CV joint?
Hi all,
If you reverse on tarmac with steering on full lock, and front diff locked, should the car take that (and just scrub the tyres or whatever) or is that known to blow up CV joints? Because this happened to my mate recently. Trying to understand if the CV joints must already have been weak or if this is a well-known no-no.
Here's what happened:
Matey took his 120 series Prado to a mechanic recently to get the rear diff locker looked at, as it's not locking. There is front one too which works fine. Mechanic came out to have a look at flicked both lockers on and off a couple of times, then told matey to drive around to the workshop so they could lift it up and have a look. So the first thing he had to do was reverse and turn the car.
I didn't realise but the mechanic had left the lockers on. Mate hadn't touched them, he's pretty new to the car and 4WDing (so am I). After he'd gone just a couple of metres the front suspension started making nasty metallic pinging sounds. Bit puzzled, straightend up, drove forward and back, realised the lockers were on and turned them off - but too late, the front left CV joint at the hub was destroyed, it spat out some grease around the boot even, could turn the driveshaft by hand and the wheel didn't turn with it.
I'm trying to work out if this was a reasonable mistake, down to worn CV joints, or something the mechanic really should have known about and not led us into - yes it was us driving, but it feels like we might have been set up to blow up the CV joint and generate some nice extra work for this guy's workshop!
I'm really interested to hear opinions from you folks who know about this stuff.
If it makes a difference the car has about a 2" lift - so I suppose that increases the angle on the CV joint.
Cheers
If you reverse on tarmac with steering on full lock, and front diff locked, should the car take that (and just scrub the tyres or whatever) or is that known to blow up CV joints? Because this happened to my mate recently. Trying to understand if the CV joints must already have been weak or if this is a well-known no-no.
Here's what happened:
Matey took his 120 series Prado to a mechanic recently to get the rear diff locker looked at, as it's not locking. There is front one too which works fine. Mechanic came out to have a look at flicked both lockers on and off a couple of times, then told matey to drive around to the workshop so they could lift it up and have a look. So the first thing he had to do was reverse and turn the car.
I didn't realise but the mechanic had left the lockers on. Mate hadn't touched them, he's pretty new to the car and 4WDing (so am I). After he'd gone just a couple of metres the front suspension started making nasty metallic pinging sounds. Bit puzzled, straightend up, drove forward and back, realised the lockers were on and turned them off - but too late, the front left CV joint at the hub was destroyed, it spat out some grease around the boot even, could turn the driveshaft by hand and the wheel didn't turn with it.
I'm trying to work out if this was a reasonable mistake, down to worn CV joints, or something the mechanic really should have known about and not led us into - yes it was us driving, but it feels like we might have been set up to blow up the CV joint and generate some nice extra work for this guy's workshop!
I'm really interested to hear opinions from you folks who know about this stuff.
If it makes a difference the car has about a 2" lift - so I suppose that increases the angle on the CV joint.
Cheers
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