My passenger side rear was supposedly fixed per recall warranty but when it went bad again I noticed the dude at the shop didnt fix it he just used an offset bearing.
TO fix it, I bought from Rock Auto the Dorman kit 630-214 for $95 delivered.
However being of much ignorance about rear ends I didnt realize the carrier bearing was shot. It all almost ruptured, so I had a shop rebuild around August 2013.
They told me they replaced both shafts regardless.
As of last month I hear the passenger side making noise again.
The shop told me they used higher quality bearings, I forget the brand. I guess those suck too.

Don't want to hijack your thread but I need rear axles for my 04 CVPI (28 Spline) and RockAuto has them but they come in 3 different lengths (30.38", 34 3/8', and 31 5/8").

How do I know which ones are for my car?

The dorman failure begins.

I was driving home yesterday and noticed my rear sounded a bit louder than it has been. Jacked the rear up today and I don't feel any up and down play, so the bearings are still ok. But I saw that the drivers rear backing plate was covered in gear oil. So the seal has failed on that side!!

Which is perfect timing, I start working 5 days a week tomorrow and will be driving 60 miles a day...

Now to see how good their warranty service is.

Autozone is of no help. Have to wait for an email reply from Dorman to find out how to handle it. According to Autozone there is only a 90 day warranty! Even though Dorman products all have a lifetime warranty.

I think it may just be the seal that failed. I do remember they did not look as good as what was on the car, but I used them anyways. The bearings still seems to be solid. I guess I will get a look when I take it all apart to replace the seal. I might remember to take pics this time around.

My fluid level is still good and the leak is not bad, but I will want to get it fixed.

The brand of seals I used would be Duralast (which is just a name printed on other brand name).

Their was a video on youtube saying Dorman was crap (he took a file to the OEM and then to the dorman). The file-test (not conclusive) showed that dorman used softer metal.


I expect to get my 1AAuto axle tomorrow. I paid 165$ (shipping included), for hopefully a better brand. Their videos online helped me alot and I decided to say "what the hell" and go with it.

Ordered through Ebay for an extra-level of confidence.

I used Dorman to replace the one in my ex's Marauder a few years ago. They barely lasted a year and a half. Never again.

I will have to keep driving it as is till the weekend. I will pull the axles and see what is going on. Probably on Saturday. I am quite broke at the moment so if I can get a replacement dorman part, that is what will have to go in there for now.

Fingers crossed that it is just the seal!

Dormans reply about Autozone is basically just print out the page that shows the lifetime warranty and shove it in their faces. So that will be my plan and they had better honor it.

So I out found what the noise I was hearing was. That was not the axle starting to grind away. The plastic cap on my roof came off exposing the 1.5in hole it was covering. That explains the extra noise.


So hopefully its just the seal that went out. I will post an update on Saturday when I have it apart.

If you have a few extra bucks PLEASE buy name brand seals and bearings(Motorcraft, National, SKF). No Valuecrap or DudLast or the courtesy crap in the kit. You don't want to do this job over again. The Motorcraft seals are really cheap for a pair on ebay if you sort by price. I see a pair for under $12.

Bearings are also extremely delicate. Even dropping a bearing could ruin it. http://www.timken.com/en-us/products/maintdiag/documents/6347.pdf

I saw the YT video - the axle likely failed because of the cheap bearing.

When I was doing a Co-op at a large industrial company, I was bored one day and found a rather large booklet published by Timken about just about every type of bearing failure mode, their causes, and such. Read it cover to cover. That taught me just how delicate bearings in this sort of application really are. I suggest anyone with an interest views the above PDF and does some research on it - it's actually pretty interesting how easily bearings can get screwed up.

TIMKEN is all I need to say. I found that the OEM brand is TIMKEN. Its lasted 100k. 3x more expensive than DURALAST (Dudlast haha).

Its USA Made. So definite quality!

Got everything apart today and got to have a look. The wear on the axle and bearing looked fine for 19K miles. Other than being able to see where the bearing is riding on the axle it is nice and smooth. The bearings looked nice as well. (You can see the USA stamp on these. Which is why I felt it was ok to use them.)

I threw a new Timken seal into that slot and put it all back together. The test to see how long these dorman axles and bearings will last continues for now.

Current mileage is now 190,200

Yeah I read another member here was a mechanic at a taxi company. He said about Dorman axles, that the failure rate was high. He always had to replace the Dorman stuff. That was his experience.

My 1aauto came with Timken Bearings and seals. Only problem is I didn't know until I installed the ones I bought. Now I have a spare bearing and seal. :X

Hmmm....interesting. Good 1aauto uses Timken bearings & seals. Now just to see how the axle holds up. I looked last year into 1aauto parts, but nobody here had any experience with that brand, so I didn't buy the parts.