97 camry differential replacement

Pricey. Maybe you can get a different car for that money.

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

============================ I would definitely get a second opinion. Have never heard of a differential going bad unless it was run without fluid. The differential is at the inboard end of the axles unlikely to cause shaking at the wheels. The differential should last the life of the car as long as the fluid is changed regularly. It only ever does anything when you're going around a corner, otherwise it simply transfers power straight through. I don't know if it has any relation to the gear clearances, but when I changed the axles, the axle seals in the differential looked like new, as did the gears. However, I did have some shaking at the wheels under acceleration at high speed. The Toyota manual calls for regular inspection of the ball joints, and in checking mine I found one had clearance and required replacement. You simply lift the car, put a wood block under the wheel, lower half the weight onto the block and then check with a pry bar under the ball joint. Maximum clearance is zero. Then in replacing the ball joints, when I reattached the control arm, I used a pry bar to gain clearance for the bolts. In doing this, I noticed a new tear in the rubber bushing at the back of the control arm, so I also replaced the control arms. The big surprise is that when the control arms were removed, I discovered the inside of the rear bushing, hidden while installed in the car, was split all the way through on both left and right control arms. So I would check the ball joints and visually inspect the rear control arm bushing for cracking. There are some other items in the factory service manual, such as checking the axle bearings with a dial indicator and checking the wheel hub with a dial indicator, but both of those checked out fine. See: