Universal joint broke

i wouldn’t know so I’m only asking. Are you responsible for service and checking over the truck? That truck probably wasn’t maintained very good. You had it 2 weeks. No it wasn’t your fault. It was a a couple years of neglect before you

 

It should have been caught by the service guy doing the lube job if it had any play. Probably a combination of pizz poor maintenance and a maintenance tech who got his experience at jiffy lube that didn't do his job. The last truck I owned had over 700k on it, and I replaced the u-joint on the front axle because I had a center support bearing that was worn and let the shaft vibrate too much and I was affraid it put to much wear and tear on the u-joint. The rest were still good with that many miles.

 

They usually fail from not being greased. Lots of the new one are permanently sealed. The seals can go bad and let dirt and stuff in then they go bad. If a driver gives the truck lots power when starting out that would also put more stress on them or drivers missing the gears or not shifting smooth over time can put shock to the drive line.

They are normally pretty strong. I had 2000 Volvo and drove it to 1,600,000 miles and never change them. Just greased them like every 25,000 miles

 

I understand things happen but I don’t think it’s anything I did. Just wanted opinions, thank you. And I’m glad it broke while I’m at the truck stop and not the 380 miles of desert I drove in today...

 

Many of you guys failed to notice that he’s new to the industry, and he’s a company driver. It’s rare that company drivers check this and other things. But he’s learned a valuable lesson.

On top of that. Freightliner had some casting issues in the past. Yokes, not U joints were snapping in extreme cold. So things do, just break.

I’m willing to bet his truck doesn’t even get greased before it turns 30k, If then.

 

I know for a fact I didn’t accelerate with a lot of power because I was taught that day one at my school to SLOWLY push the throttle. It’s an automatic so definitley didn’t miss any gears.

 

Our fleet gets truck maintenanced every 35,000 miles and my truck is just over 390,000. I feel like a mechanic at the shop didn’t do his job...

 

He’s not saying you did it. It would take months of abuse for a crappy driver to destroy a u joint. You couldn’t do that in 2 weeks if you tried

 

Bottom line is, u joints wear out and fail. It’s up to you as the driver to catch it early and keep them greased. Doesn’t take more than 5 minutes to check for play once every couple weeks.

 

I know he’s not saying I did, personally, but the road service guy asked me the same question and I told him I didn’t. Then he asked how much I weigh and I said 78,000 and he says “that might have something to do with it”