hello,

i have 2000 silverado, 1500, 4wd. a month ago a fella decided to run a stop sign in front of me and i crashed my passenger side into him. surprisingly, i drove truck back home, apperantly the only problem was misaligned passenger side wheel and some body damage.
in reality, impact was so large that the tire hit back into the tirewell cover and sprung back, staying crooked to the side and about an inch back comparing to the driver side.

anyways, insurance "took care" of this. body work was done, and quite nicely. they realigned the front end and "adjusted upper control arm and torsion bar". i test drove truck wednesday, brought it back to the shop for alignment correction, signed papers and took it back home.

truck drives fine. in 2 wheel drive mode.

friday night i had that hunch to put it into 4wd. to my horror, immediately front end started making loud growling noise, turning into grinding noise as speed increased. i disengagded 4wd immediately and tried automatic awd. problem was there, just much less pronounced. i don't really use 4wd all the time, so it was not natural to me to check on it after repairs; obviously, shop did not care to do that too. but i had 4wd enaged on few occasions, and even drove on freeway with that on. at above 50mph it'd make some humming, but that was it, nothing to sound bad or such.

i'll deal with insurance and adjuster myself, but have 2 questions:

1. had anyone similar problem and what was it? i am betting on front differential, as if the wheel went so far back during impact, it must have slammed driveshaft into differential. there is NO leaks underneath the truck, and i had personally fluid changed 15K miles ago with synth one, so that is out of question.

2. where can i buy, besides stealership, front differential, in case my insurance will throw towel on this and i have to do it myself? anyone knows part number, so i can get it off gmpartsdirect?

 

well when you get hit and it pushes in that front wheel that hard, theres a few possible things that could happen, one is damage to the CV joints or axle,it could havesplit the front diff housing causing the gears to not mesh correctly,or internal damage in the front diff,something of that sort. that is definately something to deal with on the insureance,the shop shouldknow to look for that stuff if the wheel gets hit. and person in that line of work "should" know that, but most of them are lucky to even know what a tire is...

 

You better fight hard with your insurance that could be in the transfer case also. You could have an internal problem that would not make it leak but will still have problems inside.