Greetings all -

My first post - I would greatly appreciate the feedback/help.

I have an 08 JK that I've owned since June of this year. I purchased it with 20K miles and it was bone stock. Since that time I've added:

4" Super lift
35" MT Baja radials
Smittybilt XRC front and rear bumpers
Pro-fab nerf bars
Cat-back exhaust
Airaid intake

Shortly after I installed all the goodies, I noticed a few small drops on the garage floor. It turned out to be an axle seal. Since the JK is still under warranty, I took it to the dealer who replaced the seal under warranty - no questions asked.

Fast forward 2,000 miles later - same seal leaking again. This one appears to be worse than the first. I'm still under warranty - and since it's the same side the dealer has already replaced, I'm not anticipating any problems in that regard. My biggest concern at this point is - why am I losing axle seals so quickly? This will be 2 in 4,000 miles.

Thoughts, comments, etc. All greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

I had the same exact problem. On my visit for 3rd seal replacement I discussed the problem with the service writer, who then let me talk to a lead tech. I asked them to replace the axle shaft along with the seal. I got the tech to agree that the axle might be causing the problem.

The new seal and axle shaft so far have fixed the problem.

And welcome aboard, just noticed this was your first post.

 

I would think an untrue axle (i.e. bent) would tear up a seal ...

 

if you wheel your jk check that your axle vent tube isnt plugged when it gets plugged it will blow a seal because it can't breath it happened to both the front seals on my buddys fj

 

service yesterday, blown axle seal !!!!!!!
i'm in the same boat, luckily warranty is covering it.

 

There are a fair number of folks on the board who have reported this problem over the years.

The experiences are fairly common:

1. Leaking axle seal
2. Often replaced under warantee (hopefully)
3. Replaced seal leaks
4. Rinse and repeat..

Only "permanent" fix is to replace the axle shaft although the dealers seems to need to go through a few seal replacements to get the the point where they recognize this is necessary.

The consensus seems to be that the manufacturing tolerances (i.e. "straightness" and "trueness" of the OEM shafts aren't always what they might be and if you get one that isn't straight you end up with the leaky seal sooner or later.

The other thing that can cause leaks is if the differential is overfilled - oil ends up getting pushed plast the seal. That can sometimes be remedied by making sure that you check the level - especially if it's been changed by a previous owner or dealer.

In the main though the problems typically seems to be down to poor quality OEM shafts.

The tip would be to make sure that you get to the "axle replacement" stage with the dealer before you run out of warantee..

Good luck!

Steve

 

I have the same problem. 08 JK with 16500 miles on it and first seal is bad.

My suggestion Pro Rock the biatch.

 

I think that might be where I am headed - having failed to get it sorted out properly under warantee ....

 

The only leak issue I had was after the 5.13's were installed. The rear diff was a tad (a lot) overfilled. Manifested itself by spewage out the axle seal. Corrected by setting the fill level to where it should be - just above the bottom of the axle shaft. No problems since.

 

Yup, seen it happen recently. Vent tube came off rear diff. Vent "nipple" on rear diff got plugged with mud, dirty, debris. Wasn't noticed until highway driving when the vent couldn't vent and the pressure went out the axles.

It would be easy enough to check out yourself.