Differential Fluid, When and Why It Needs Serviced

This week we will discuss the importance of serving your vehicle’s differentials and when and why a differential may need to be serviced.

Why is serving your differentials important?

A vehicle’s differentials transfer power from the engine and transmission to the wheels. If not properly serviced or not kept up on, it can cause excessive wear internally and could result in the vehicle having to go to a shop for an expensive differential repair.

When your differential may need serviced

Your differential fluid may need changed for many reasons including time or mileage, a leaks, and or bushing or bearing wear.

The time or mileage when a manufacturer recommends service is located in your owner’s manual. Often something like 20-30,000 miles or 3 years, whichever comes first.

If your vehicle’s differential cover, end seals, or pinion seal is leaking, repairs should be performed as soon as possible to prevent any damage due to low or no fluid inside the differential. In the case of the differential cover leaking, this is a simple fix in which we would change the fluid since it would be drained when the cover is removed.

If excess noise is present in a differential, a more involved service may need to be performed as this is an indicator of a mechanical issue.

As time goes on the fluid will begin to break down and not lubricate as well as it should so routine maintenance is the best way to prevent costly repairs.

Our Differential fluids and service intervals

At Rogers Mobile Lube & Tire, we use Amsoil Severe Gear differential fluids. Our two most commonly used differential fluids are SVG 75W-90 or SVO 75W-140 which both have drain intervals of 50,000 miles or 4 years in severe service, whichever comes first. Some vehicles may require a differential fluid other than SVG or SVO, in that case we will order the proper fluid from Amsoil to be sure we are providing the correct fluid for your application. 

How we service a differential 

There are many different methods that we use to perform differential fluid changes.

If the differential is equipped with a drain plug, and it is not leaking, we will simply drain the old fluid out and refill it with new fluid. If the vehicle’s differential is not equipped with a drain plug we have two options to service it. 1. we can use our fluid extractor to suck the fluid out of the differential from the fill plug. 2. If that is not an option, or the cover is leaking, we will remove the differential cover.

This is a basic discussion of our differential fluid service, if you have any questions or require more information than discussed here, give us a call, we would be happy to discuss it with you.

Authored by Steven H.