Americas Front Driveshaft CV redesign

[Commodore]

Ineos crew, there is an issue with the front driveshaft CV at the transfer case side. The acute driveline angle generates heat causing the rubber on the CV to rip and spill grease. This leads to failure of the CV joint and ultimately immediate loss of forward propulsion. The failures have been well documented. Do you have plans to redesign this part or should owners start looking for their own permanent solutions?

This is a serious safety concern that needs to be resolved.

 

[Commodore]

It's interesting to read about it again and again..... strangely enough, almost only from the USA! From my point of view, Ineos would have to fundamentally revise the entire cardan shaft connection (including axle design and transfer case). Unfortunately, most customers don't have a clue about the problem, but just looking at the axle shaft should give the layman food for thought! Too little is happening (yet), but I think it's a time bomb.
(I have an angle of the front joint of 8° (6° inclination of the shaft +2° caster or inclination of the drive train) when stationary at standard height, which is considerable! When sprung out, the value increases accordingly up to 14° and 12° respectively!)

Interesting that you see it more in the USA. My theory is that it’s more of a heat issue from the constant flexing of the boot during rotation. The US has long highway drives at 80 to 90 mph. Those highway miles are going to put a lot of heat in the plastic boot especially if it’s summer in the west and air temp is 105 degrees.

 

[Clark Kent]

Interesting that you see it more in the USA. My theory is that it’s more of a heat issue from the constant flexing of the boot during rotation. The US has long highway drives at 80 to 90 mph. Those highway miles are going to put a lot of heat in the plastic boot especially if it’s summer in the west and air temp is 105 degrees.

Generalising a bit more; I have the impression that US owners who go off-road spend more time traversing rocky terrain at low speeds where height changes over ledges and steps cause more full suspension and drive line articulation cycles per track mile than other countries and driving conditions. More of a bias towards rock wheeling than overlanding. Would that be an accurate assessment or have YouTubes in Utah skewed my impression of what you guys do most when you go off-road?
For sure other countries have rough terrain, including our lovely corrugations (washboard ruts) in Australia, but that's not flexing and stressing the driveline in the same way as low speed crawling over rocks where the joints are operating at maximum torque and displacement angle.

So perhaps this is another reason why the USA is seeing more failures of the joint at the TC end, empirically at least. You guys use your Grenadiers different to other regions on terrain where Wranglers do well because they're built more for that environment.

In other words: Are you guys just rough on your toys?

 

[CRH]

Generalising a bit more; I have the impression that US owners who go off-road spend more time traversing rocky terrain at low speeds where height changes over ledges and steps cause more full suspension and drive line articulation cycles per track mile than other countries and driving conditions. More of a bias towards rock wheeling than overlanding. Would that be an accurate assessment or have YouTubes in Utah skewed my impression of what you guys do most when you go off-road?
For sure other countries have rough terrain, including our lovely corrugations (washboard ruts) in Australia, but that's not flexing and stressing the driveline in the same way as low speed crawling over rocks where the joints are operating at maximum torque and displacement angle.

So perhaps this is another reason why the USA is seeing more failures of the joint at the TC end, empirically at least. You guys use your Grenadiers different to other regions on terrain where Wranglers do well because they're built more for that environment.

In other words: Are you guys just rough on your toys?

Or is it just the volume of vehicles sold in US compared to everywhere else?

 

[Clark Kent]

Or is it just the volume of vehicles sold in US compared to everywhere else?

Any or all of those things

 

[parb]

I think it's a bit of all of it.

 

[Zimm]

We wheel. I.e. we aim for the hard line. It’s weekend toy here, not a tool.

Been more than one grocery getter with a failed cv though. If one removes the damaged units from wheeling or poor spring upgrade procedure, I do wonder if the grocery getter failure is within the norm.

 

[Zimm]

That Agile shaft frightens me. The angles on the tcase and diff visually look too different. I hope it works well for those that use it, but nothing that may wear over time is a cheap fix. I’ll let others rack up miles on that before I throw those dice.

 

[Dokatd]

Truth be told, I don’t even mind the low caster. I was on trails yesterday and was thinking about how nice it is that the steering wheel just stays put and doesn’t bounce around.

Well, additional caster will improve that more. Caster is what holds the steering in a relatively straight line for lack of a better description. You may be confusing stiction or dampening of the steering stabilizer if you're suggesting the truck is more point and shoot when maneuvering around stuff. Reducing caster makes the steering more vague and reactive to bumps and undulations in the road/trail. Having a crap ton of steering dampening reduces the wobble and vague feeling of low caster.

 

[Dokatd]

Generalising a bit more; I have the impression that US owners who go off-road spend more time traversing rocky terrain at low speeds where height changes over ledges and steps cause more full suspension and drive line articulation cycles per track mile than other countries and driving conditions. More of a bias towards rock wheeling than overlanding. Would that be an accurate assessment or have YouTubes in Utah skewed my impression of what you guys do most when you go off-road?
For sure other countries have rough terrain, including our lovely corrugations (washboard ruts) in Australia, but that's not flexing and stressing the driveline in the same way as low speed crawling over rocks where the joints are operating at maximum torque and displacement angle.

So perhaps this is another reason why the USA is seeing more failures of the joint at the TC end, empirically at least. You guys use your Grenadiers different to other regions on terrain where Wranglers do well because they're built more for that environment.

In other words: Are you guys just rough on your toys?

Just FYI, Moab, and the like in Utah, is honestly some of the easier 4 wheeling in the states. It's just so damn scenic and nice though. We have some much much more harsh areas that really work trucks hard. My favorite stuff is in Las Cruces, NM. It's up there with the hardest practical trails. Lots of stuff that a Grenadier just couldn't do, at least not without serious damage anyways.

That said, I'm not convinced many of the boot failures are happening on trucks being used hard off-road. I think most are from extended onroad use. And even then I think many of those are simply from pinched boots at lift install. It doesn't forgive the fact that the angles up front are dumb, but it does explain things a bit.

 

[Commodore]

Gents,

You all have valid points. Mine gets a fair bit of dirt and run through the range of suspension travel but I’m sticking to my theory on fatigue from heat cycles. Of course I could be wrong.

 

[Dokatd]

Gents,

You all have valid points. Mine gets a fair bit of dirt and run through the range of suspension travel but I’m sticking to my theory on fatigue from heat cycles. Of course I could be wrong.

You may be partially right, the joints are very tight when new and there is not good airflow at the front of the t-case. The joint gets brutally hot in the first few thousand miles. But as the joint loosens and the t-case wears in a bit I suspect some of the heat generation subsides. This affect may be reduced if you tend to make shorter hops in the first few thousand miles. Me, I ran the truck hard back and forth from Texas to Colorado multiple times in the first 4,000mi.

 

[Stu_Barnes]

Ineos crew, there is an issue with the front driveshaft CV at the transfer case side. The acute driveline angle generates heat causing the rubber on the CV to rip and spill grease. This leads to failure of the CV joint and ultimately immediate loss of forward propulsion. The failures have been well documented. Do you have plans to redesign this part or should owners start looking for their own permanent solutions?

This is a serious safety concern that needs to be resolved.

Lynn didn't have the answer to hand but we discussed the CV joint boots failing by the nature of them operating at their extremes in terms of deflection. She took it back to her engineering team and they replied today.

Propshaft angle a hot topic from the very early days of engineering the Grenadier – no surprise there. We worked very closely with our supplier on the development and tested it in extremely rough conditions over many miles without any issues. We now see (and thanks for the feedback) that there have been reports on some rubber boots.

We are reviewing this internally, and with the supplier, and will weigh up whether we believe there needs to be a fix. We have some meetings set up to discuss in the coming weeks. The propshaft angle will be even more critical if lifting the vehicle (>20mm).

 

[Zimm]

Lynn didn't have the answer to hand but we discussed the CV joint boots failing by the nature of them operating at their extremes in terms of deflection. She took it back to her engineering team and they replied today.

Propshaft angle a hot topic from the very early days of engineering the Grenadier – no surprise there. We worked very closely with our supplier on the development and tested it in extremely rough conditions over many miles without any issues. We now see (and thanks for the feedback) that there have been reports on some rubber boots.

We are reviewing this internally, and with the supplier, and will weigh up whether we believe there needs to be a fix. We have some meetings set up to discuss in the coming weeks. The propshaft angle will be even more critical if lifting the vehicle (>20mm).

“We now see…”



If that’s true, I see an issue too, and it ain’t just the boot.

 

[Dokatd]

“We now see…”



If that’s true, I see an issue too, and it ain’t just the boot.

Yeah, that was either a complete BS answer or an admittance of pure ignorance. There are most certainly some major disconnects at Ineos.

 

[Allrad-Oli]

Ein zusätzlicher Nachlauf verbessert das weiter. Der Nachlauf sorgt dafür, dass die Lenkung relativ gerade bleibt, da ich keine bessere Beschreibung habe. Sie verwechseln möglicherweise Haftreibung oder Dämpfung des Lenkungsdämpfers, wenn Sie meinen, der Truck sei beim Manövrieren um Hindernisse herum zielgenauer. Ein reduzierter Nachlauf macht die Lenkung ungleichmäßiger und reagiert empfindlicher auf Unebenheiten und Bodenwellen. Eine starke Lenkungsdämpfung reduziert das Wackeln und das ungleichmäßige Fahrgefühl bei geringem Nachlauf.

...es könnte auch sein, daß Ineos einen viel zu straffen Lenkungsdämpfer gewählt hat, um den Nachlauf wegen des extremen Knickwinkels zu veriingern zu können?, aber am oberen Gelenk ist Ihnen nichts mehr eingefallen? (ich hätte schon eine Idee? ...it could also be that Ineos chose a much too tight steering damper to reduce the caster due to the extreme articulation angle? but you couldn't think of anything else at the upper joint? (I would already have an idea?

 

[Allrad-Oli]

Oder liegt es einfach an der Anzahl der in den USA verkauften Fahrzeuge im Vergleich zu allen anderen Ländern?

...das Problem tritt nach meines Wissens eher bei dauerhaften Landstraßen und Autobahngeschwindigkeiten auf, es hat also wenig mit den allgemeinen Brüchen zu tun, welche durch Lastspitzen oder zu große Winkel entstehen, darüber wurde hier auch schon berichtet: Es liegt die Vermutung nahe, daß die Gummimanschette die dauerhafte Bewegung bei hohen Drehzahl übel nimmt. Dann nimmt das Unglück seinen Lauf...! Die Gelenkwellenspezialisten die ich kenne, schlgen die "Hände über dem Kopf zusammen" wenn Sie die Grenadier Gelenksituationen sehen.

 

[Dokatd]

...es könnte auch sein, daß Ineos einen viel zu straffen Lenkungsdämpfer gewählt hat, um den Nachlauf wegen des extremen Knickwinkels zu veriingern zu können?, aber am oberen Gelenk ist Ihnen nichts mehr eingefallen? (ich hätte schon eine Idee? ...it could also be that Ineos chose a much too tight steering damper to reduce the caster due to the extreme articulation angle? but you couldn't think of anything else at the upper joint? (I would already have an idea?

They started with a clean slate as far as I know. They could have made everything work just fine within the tolerance of off-road and on-road performance expectations. There are plenty of examples of off-road trucks that steer just fine onroad with or without a stabilizer. As well many of your bigger off-road trucks don't have stabilizers at all. They just made some absolutely stupid decisions and it's bit them. It's one of the primary things holding them back in the USA. Otherwise they would be flying off lots considering some of the recent software fixes. The joint issue is just stupid too. They chose a joint that was super tolerant yet acted like they needed certain angles. They absolutely knew people would lift these trucks yet they still almost maxed the joints out at factory height. Just ridiculous, but they will get away with it since it's not a true safety issue.

Soweit ich weiß, haben sie mit einer sauberen Weste angefangen. Sie hätten alles gut funktionieren lassen können, wenn die Erwartungen an die Off-Road- und On-Road-Leistung toleriert werden. Es gibt viele Beispiele für Offroad-Lkw, die mit oder ohne Stabilisator auf der Straße gut lenken. Auch viele Ihrer größeren Offroad-Lkw haben überhaupt keine Stabilisatoren. Sie haben gerade einige absolut dumme Entscheidungen getroffen und es hat sie gebissen. Es ist eines der wichtigsten Dinge, die sie in den USA zurückhalten. Andernfalls würden sie angesichts einiger der jüngsten Software-Fixes viel davonfliegen. Das gemeinsame Problem ist auch einfach dumm. Sie wählten einen Joint, der super tolerant war, aber so tat, als bräuchten sie bestimmte Winkel. Sie wussten absolut, dass die Leute diese Lastwagen heben würden, aber sie haben die Gelenke auf Werkshöhe fast ausgereizt. Einfach lächerlich, aber sie werden damit durchkommen, da es kein echtes Sicherheitsproblem ist.

Sorry, my German is still limited to discussing the weather and ordering a sandwich. But I'm getting better.