Elk

Last week I noticed a small clicking sound coming from the rear of my car when starting from a stop or after letting up on the gas and accelerating. I tracked it down to the hub on the left rear. In fact, I could get the hub to click if I rolled my car back and forth. It sounded somewhat as if the plastic cover over the large axle nut was binding (it wasn't).

I saw posted that it was a known problem for rust to build up in the axle shaft splines where the axle passes into the hub. When this occurs, a popping noise can be heard when starting out in forward or reverse. The fix was to lubricate the axle splines with antiseize.

Thus, I brought my car to the dealer. To my surprise, GM tech told the dealer to replace the half shafts. These were sent overnight and I had my cat back early the next day. The clicking sound is gone.

My service writer knows only that the axle shafts are a different part number from the original. He doesn't have any information as to how the half shafts are different or why replacing the shafts was necessary.

Anybody happen to know more?

In any event, for those that have had this problem this is apparently the new fix.

0vetteshop

Cleaning the splines and lubing them would have had the same result ;) I see this often...Good to see that the problem is fixed and that you got some new parts :yesnod:

Elk

Cleaning and lubricating the axle splines with something with staying power seems like the most reasonable fix.

Any idea why they replaced the half shafts? This sounds like a lot more work, plus the cost of parts.