Thread: Defender Driveline Noise/Vibrations

Mostly concerning TD5 and Puma 130 owners, but if you have a heavy load or tow on your 110 then you might want to read on too...


To summarise, here are the symptoms I was having:

A resonance-type noise (difficult to describe in words, but I usually call it "straining/groaning") and a slight vibration along with it, under load. It sets in between 90-95 and disappears again between 105-110 and is most noticeable when accelerating or going up hills.

The history of my vehicle:

09 Defender 130 crew cab-chassis. Bought new. Accessories went on when new (but post dealer delivery, as the dealer refused to do them). All were professionally fitted by ARB. Accessories include: steel bull bar with 9500lb winch, driving lights, snorkel, dual-battery, air lockers front and rear and a 155 l long range tank. A Trayon camper went on at 1300km. Symptoms started to appear at around 3500km and gradually got worse. I’ve just gone through 9000km.

During the last 5000km, and starting in early October, the vehicle has now been at an authorised dealer workshop 4 times (at 3 different dealers) for a total of 9 days.

1st workshop visit: This was during my first camping holiday, interstate, and the noise/vibrations reached the point where I felt they needed to be looked at. The diagnosis I received was that my symptoms were consistent with the 5th/6th synchro hubs wearing! Ok, bit unexpected to say the least! I was dismayed at the prospect of having them rip out my gearbox with 4000km on the clock, and even more dismayed that there were no parts in the country to actually rebuild and fix the gearbox (a good thing in hindsight)! Since I wasn’t prepared to have the vehicle for several weeks at an interstate dealer I decided to drive home and have it looked at by my home dealer. The interstate dealer assured me that all the diagnostics gathered would be passed on to my home dealer...

2nd workshop visit: I won’t go into details, but the above info was not passed on to my home dealer. A day was wasted by them not listening to me about what my symptoms were, and the initial diagnosis was my modified rear sway bar (which is lowered a little to fit the long range tank). I told them to look again, since I was complaining about a driveline noise/vibration. They ended up ruling out the gearbox as a cause (what happened to that synchro problem ?) Second diagnosis was “off-round” wheels. I was sceptical, but since they were going to put in a warrant claim for new wheels I went along with it.

There followed 2 months of chasing up the dealer for news/information, and ultimately Land Rover rejected the warrant claim!

Over Christmas I went on my second interstate camping trip. Much more hilly terrain this time, and the noise/vibrations seemingly had gotten worse. Decided to get Land Rover involved directly rather than just take it to another dealer. They were initially quite helpful and had the vehicle towed to the nearest dealer (which entitled me to a loan car for the duration ... something to keep in mind!).

So onto the 3rd workshop visit. They ended up ruling out the wheels as a problem, and they were planning to have a look at the rear prop shaft next, but some confusion over the end of my holiday made them return the vehicle without having done so. I then organised with Land Rover Customer Support to have another dealer’s workshop at my home location (but not the one I had bought the vehicle from) look at the problem. I was assured that all relevant information would be handed to that workshop.

4th workshop visit. No information was passed on, so the workshop was not prepared to investigate the problem on the day of the booking, since it would have taken them a 40-odd km round-trip to get the vehicle onto a road where 100km/h was legal! After the second day in the workshop (and the usual chasing up on my part to get anything out of a dealer workshop) I was told that the noise was in fact caused by the modified rear diff, and the vibrations were caused by the weight of my camper! (Never mind that the two symptoms were occurring concurrently!) I was then contacted by Land Rover Customer Support, who in so many words told me that this was no longer their problem, since I had modified the driveline! To add insult to injury, when the vehicle was returned to me I compared the before and after odometer readings and realised that they would not have been able to take the vehicle onto a 100km/h legal road. Clearly it was a lot easier to blame my accessories. They offered to “repair” my “broken” rear diff, but could not give me any guarantee that this would in fact solve the problem “because my modifying the rear diff may have caused all sorts of other problems in the driveline”. Sure!

So I took the vehicle to Traction4 ARB Artarmon, who had fitted all my accessories. To their credit they did not reject Land Rover’s claim of a “broken” diff out of hand, and actually investigated that claim. Not surprisingly they found not fault. I was told that changes in driveline geometry quite often were the cause of the kind of symptoms I was experiencing, so we did some testing and measuring:

Taking the camper off the tray greatly reduced the symptoms and shifted them to higher speeds (>110km/h). Lifting the camper off the tray had increased the rear-axle to tray distance by 6-7cm. From my records, putting the camper onto the tray after 1300km had decreased that distance by only 4cm, so the rear springs had sagged another 2-3cm since then. Lowering the rear by 6-7cm increased the front prop shaft angle measurable. Here’s the clincher: according to ARB’s books (OME I presume), lifting the front of a 98-onward Defender requires fitment of double cardan joints to prevent front prop shaft vibrations!
And effectively my sagging rear had induced the same kind of front prop shaft angles that a lifted front would have done!

Here’s a good place to talk weights: My tare weight is 2020kg. Add a conservative 300kg for fuel and accessories. Add the camper, empty at 400kg, 120kg of water, 100kg of gear: a touch under 3000kg. The GVM of a 130 is supposed to be 3500kg! Clearly not if a lot of that weight is on the tray/tub! The PRIMARY reason why I got the 130 was that it should have been capable of conservatively carrying that weight ... I might as well have gotten a Hilux instead!

Traction4 have now replaced my rear springs with VHD springs from OME. This has increased the axle-to-tray distance to the original, unloaded value (with the camper on). And while it hasn’t eliminated the vibrations/noise completely (the vehicle clearly doesn’t like that extra weight on the tray), they are onsiderably reduced. Handling is much better and steering is more responsive again too. My wholehearted thanks to Dave, Mark, Richard and the boys at Traction4/ARB Artarmon! No thanks to Land Rover Australia and 3 of their authorised dealers!

Which still begs the question, why were 3 authorised dealer workshops incapable (or unwilling) to diagnose the problem? Are they afraid of admitting that the 130 isn’t nearly as “high capacity” as they advertise it to be? I can only guess...

Originally Posted by slug_burner

On other threads on this forum it has been discussed that the length to diameter ratio of the rear drive shaft is marginal on the 130 with vibration problems resulting. Apparently a larger diameter tube reduces the vibrations on the rear shaft.

It might be worthwhile doing a search (I think the tom woods site has a calculator to establish the appropriate diameter of your shaft)

Most dealers can only manage an oil change, anything more complex and the apprentices can't handle it. Find yourself an independant LR specialist.

In that other thread of lrbob's, his vibration disappears when the rear shaft is removed and the 130 is driven using the front shaft.

From that, it must reasonably be concluded that the problem lrbob has is with the rear shaft and not the front shaft as what I believe slt is saying.