deanpence

Update: Rear differential is an LSD. Receipt from the oil change says they checked the "Differential/TransAx", but it doesn't get any more specific than that. Given the level of grime accumulated around the check port and drain port (?), and the fact that the orange label indicating LSD oil use only was completely obscured with grime, I doubt they even looked at it. I can't open the check port currently. It seems to be threaded, and I measured the square hole at about 1.25cm or 9/16"; since I have nothing that can open it, I'm going to go see what Walmart has, maybe a socket wrench head just so I can check the level. I'm really not sure what I'm supposed to use to unscrew it. 1) If the level is below the level of the check port, do I fill it using the same port? 2) If the level is fine, does it make sense just to drain and replace the fluid just in case the current fluid is not for an LSD? At the very least, this would eliminate one possible cause of the low-speed steering. Please bring some experience to my utter guesses.

Perhaps we should start with a basic: How do I identify the rear differential? I'm just plain ignorant here. Is it on/a part of the rear axle? Edit: Okay, I *think* I've figured it out. In this case, I've got a lot of gunk to clean off to try to see if there's a label about it needing LSD fluid. I'll try to find the check port as well.

That's what I spent most of today trying to find out. Believe it or not, I can get dehydrated really fast in this heat, so I didn't actually go look—and I didn't know what to look for. I'll check it out. I'll try the parking lot again with the window rolled down. I can definitely *feel* what feels like a tire trying to slip—or perhaps actually slipping.

Had an oil change in the past week, and they claim that they checked the transmition fluid. I double-checked earlier today, though I still need to double-check with a warm engine. It at least looked nice and red and looked full with a cold engine.

That's very good to know. I figured as such. My knowledge of the details of how a transmission works is almost nil so I'm glad my intuition was right here. No problem with stupid questions. I need stupid questions. But I did check these before posting. The green 4x4 light is off, and the 4x4 lever is all the way forward in the 2H position. I do have the stock automatic hubs. I haven't tried driving it backwards. I'll give that a whirl. Yeah, that's what I did before posting to idiot check. The mechanic who looked at it seemed to think they were related, but he may not have even worried about the whine after he figured out he couldn't fix this problem. I do hope they would have caught this, but now that the sun's gone down, and it's not over 100 degrees, I'll give it a look.

My '93 Pathfinder rumbles/shakes when turning at low speeds and has a high whine coming from the rear starting somewhere around 55mph. I'm unfortunately pretty clueless with cars (though I'm willing to learn), so I took it to a repair shop to see if they could diagnose the problem(s). I think they were dumbing it down for me, but they said it seemed like the rear wheels were stuck in 4WD and would only rotate at exactly the same speed. They also said they couldn't repair it and to take it to a 4x4 shop. From what I understand, 4WD basically locks the differential so that all wheels rotate with the same speed and torque, but that 2WD should unlock the rear differential and engage the LSD if I have it. Is that anything close to correct? (Please no flogging; just pointing and laughing.) Any ideas what might be causing the differential to behave this way?