3 Serious Outcomes of Improper Differential Maintenance
Some car owners do not pay as much attention to diff maintenance as they do to engine maintenance. This oversight can lead those car owners to experience a series of problems whose origins can be traced to unresolved differential issues. This article discusses some of the problems that you may face if you do not conduct needed differential repairs.
Increased Braking Distance
You may ask, 'How is the differential related to the car brakes?' The braking system on your car may be compromised if the seal on a rear axle is damaged. The damaged seal may cause differential oil to leak onto the brake shoes or brake pads. When that happens, the brakes will no longer reduce the speed of your car as quickly as they used to. This is because the oil that has leaked onto the components of the brakes may have reduced the friction of the brake pads. It will therefore take longer for you to bring your car to a stop when you brake, and ineffective brakes can cause serious accidents.
Premature Tyre Wear
Improper differential maintenance can also cause car tyres to wear out prematurely. For instance, lack of lubrication can cause the gears within the differential to be less effective in distributing power to the different wheels on your vehicle. Consequently, the differential may become unable to slow down the inside wheels (wheels on the side where you are turning). This can cause those inside wheels to wear out quickly due to the increased friction during turns. Such early wear can cause you to incur tyre replacement costs that would have been avoided by timely differential repair.
Poor Quality Ride
Your comfort as you drive a car with a compromised differential is likely to suffer. As already mentioned, the diff may be unable to regulate the rotation of inner and outer wheels during turns. This creates the need for you to do more to prevent the vehicle from spinning out of control. This added work makes driving more tedious and less enjoyable. Secondly, problematic differentials emit noises, such as growling and whining, as you drive. Those annoying noises also decrease how much you can enjoy driving your car.
Make differential maintenance an integral part of the car maintenance activities that you pay attention to on a regular basis. Such a proactive approach will save you from incurring costly differential repairs when the diff breaks down completely due to unresolved issues.
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