Another "What's this Noise" question
 

Hoping someone else has come across this issue. I have a 2010 FX4 with almost 60,000 miles and for the most part has been trouble free.

Recently I've started to noticed a loud metal snapping type noise under the truck while driving slowly and or make making slow speed turns. Speed bumps also tend to make it happen. To be honest, the best way to discrible this noise is like metal bolt's snapping off under the truck or bed. Anyone riding in the truck with me quickly notice it also.

I stopped by my local Ford Dealer and talked to my normal Service Advisor who I generally find to be a knowable and he felt that it was coming from the drive shaft due to the truck settling over the years and causing the shaft to be slightly out of line. He said it's more of a lubrication issue and that's it's a sealed unit that can't be lubed manually. Only replaced.

He suggested I could live with it because it shouldn't cause any problems, more of a nuisance issue. Anyone else ever come across anything like this? Drives me crazy!

U-joints are replaceable, replace them with ones that have grease fittings. That's a lot cheaper than a rebuilt driveshaft. While the driveshaft is down grease the slip yoke, Ford has special Teflon grease for that.

Talked to them today and they thought it might be the Slip Yoke but it wasn't. They felt having a U-Joint problem this soon and under my driving conditions was pretty remote. It'll be interesting to see if they ever figure it out. My 60,000 mile extended warranty just ended but they hope to do something for me.

Time will tell.....

Have them check the bushings in the front sway bar. That's sounds like the same problem I had with mine. Never did locate it as such until I had all new stuff put in the front end- struts, strut mounts, coils, tie rods, bushings. I know they did find that the strut mounts were broke so they might look at those too. Couldn't tell you for sure which was the actual culprit. Drove me nutz for almost a year.

I second Labnerd. When I had my 04 I had a similar noise that I SWORE was coming from the rear. I discovered I had a broken leaf and the spare tire was loose. I tightend up the spare, replaced the leaf springs on both sides and put new shocks on it......the noise was still there.

Sometime later I was replacing some parts in the front and seen the sway bar links were shot. I replaced them and the noise went away.