Pajero Owners Club of South Africa

I have a 2001 LWB Di-D auto and I have LSD and diff lock.

Make sure you have the right oil and amount in the rear diff. The LSD might be misbehaving due to incorrect oil quantity and/or quality.

Marius, just note that the Gen 3 rear LSD is not a friction plate type LSD, but a Torsen (gear type) LSD, so it does not need LSD specific oil. The Gen 3's rear LSD is, of course lockable as well, as you said.

Hi Skillie,

I don't have a rear diff-lock. I do recommend you go to a Mitsu dealer ASAP and ask to speak to one of the technicians. Thats what i did, I explained what my problem was and the guy pulled my car into the service center and started troubleshooting. Took him about 10min to find the problem. All and all I was in and out in about 30min which cost me nothing and I slept much better!

Hi Niel

I did take my car to the Mitsi dealer and they told me:
"Its your tyres, if we put another Pajero's tyres on it doesn't 'spin' as much if you turn your steering wheel while pulling away. So your problem is your wheel is spinning a little bit as you pull away"

In my humble opinion this is nonsense. I'm not losing power because my wheel is losing traction and supporting that, how can my BFG have less traction than the onroad tyres they tested with?

Maybe I should take it to another dealer.....

Hi Skillie!

That sounds like the guys at the dealer are thumb-sucking! I've always had superb service from the guys at Mitsu Tyger Valley in WCape. Maybe the other members can name a few dealers of the same caliber closer to you.....

I also seem to remember that my traction control light flashed if my wheel started spinning and the noise started....

Skillie

Maybe also have a look at the rear suspension location arm/swaybar/not sure what the correct name is bushes. Might be that one is worn and allow the one wheel to move slightly when accelerating hard. A wheel allignment place should be able to check it for you as a worn bush will make it dificult for them to do the rear wheel allignment on the Gen3. It is the location arm coming from the front off the vehicle to each wheel at the back that I am refering too. Maybe someone else can give a proper name. I had to replace one on my vehicle many years ago when it was still under waranty IIRC.

CATS

Skillie,

Your 2002 Pajero pre-dates traction control. That only came in during 2004.

I agree with other posts here, get it to the experts and just hear what they say. A second and third opinion is always open as an option.

Good luck.
Roelf

Skillie

Stupid question, but did they/you check that your diff-lock is not perhaps stuck (engaged)?

What you explained sounds a lot like something I encountered often on my first bakkie when I forgot to unlock the diff-lock!

Johan

Skille,

I think I may have had a similar problem on by 2001 3.2. When I bought the car I felt this shudder and at the time I thought it was the clutch. The clutch was (is) on it's way out, but after some driving I realised this must be something worse. It was noticeably worse when the vehicle was in a corner and when the vehicle was warm. It was a bit more than a shudder, but sounded almost like the rear diff lock was engaged.

My guess later was that the rear diff mounts are gone. My father suspected that the diff-lock mechanism was faulty. I took it to Mitsubishi (Bryanston) and they couldn't diagnose it but said they'd need to strip the diff and it could cost me in the region of R20k to do that.

I went back to the net and started searching for similar problems. Found one forum where guy had a similar noise and it turned out to be water in his diff. Thought a change of diff oil is probably the most sensible place to start, so I did that. It's just a standard diff with diff-lock, so I changed the oil with regular GL-5 80/90 diff and transmission oil, as per my Haynes manual. The oil that came out didn't look like it had water in it, but the viscosity also didn't seem right.

I've just returned from a 3000km odd round trip to the Eastern Cape and I haven't heard / felt that shudder once. I can still feel my clutch shudder, but that strange rear shudder has disappeared.

So to echo Marius's comments, check the oil. An oil change for me seems to have fixed it for me. This is quite frustrating, as when I bought the vehicle I wanted to have all the oils changed but Mitsubishi advised me against it as the diff oils were changed fairly recently before I bough the vehicle. Likewise I think Mitsubishi should have at least advised me to change the oils before handing a R20k quote to strip and inspect.

I guess between the vehicle leaving the previous owner and me acquiring it, it must have done some deep wading. The breather on the read diff seems like it could do with some lengthening. Although I couldn't see water in the diff, it had 10,000km to churn up and the oil seemed much less viscous that it should have been when it came out.

-Thomas

Hi All

An update,

Had my car at the mechanic for the 242 127 km minor service . I asked him to check everything and made all the suggestions from the forums.

He checked:

• Drive shaft in, to see if it hadn't pulled out a bit
  Side shafts
  Diff Oil
  Took of the CV's and opened and checked
  ABS sensors

Nothing was found out of the ordinary. The issue has reduced, but is still not solved...

Will have to take the car for a third opinion

Regards,