BBB will get involved if they charged you for work they did not do or held your car illegally or something like that. In a situation that is in anyway grey, involving perceived incompetence, there is not much they can do. It could be a defective U-joint or you are feeling the same out of balance that caused the first set of U-joints to fail is now easier to feel because the new joints have less clearance. The fact you moved the drive shaft would remove any liability they may have had to fix the issue.

My best guess would be that at some point the car bottomed out on the drive shaft and cause it to bend slightly. The bend itself does not hurt much but it puts the drive shaft out of balance. The drive shaft place can rebalance it. If it was me I would spend the money on the Aluminum one instead of rebalancing a steel one.

 

I have read the replies. The way this drive shaft ended up is that it was initially running fine on my Camaro.

Once a year, or so, I drop the drive shafts on my (2) Camaros and check for the U-joint becoming tight. I call this "preventive maintenance". I have very high mileage so I check my car a lot more than an average person might. One U-joint was tighter than I wanted.

The drive shaft was taken to a local shop. When it was returned to me, it vibrated horribly. Since the guy gave me my money back, no further action is to be taken.

The BBB will get involved if deceptive practices happen. Or warranties of the shop are not followed. I have won a dispute thru the BBB with shops before when incorrect work was performed.

I then took my drive shaft to a specialist in the city. This guy was very thorough with my shaft. He also has a balancer.

He checked the fit of the U-joints. He found the fit to be OK. But, when he put the shaft on the balancer, he discovered it was a long ways off balance.

He then took off the existing weight on the shaft and rebalanced it. He came to the conclusion that when my shaft was disassembled, the guy got the yoke on the wrong end.

Yes, I have replaced U-joints myself in the past. If I had done the work myself, this out-of-balance may not have happened.

That being said, I do see the advantage to taking a drive shaft to a place that can install the U-joints as well as check the balance. After putting the drive shaft back on my car, it is now perfectly smooth.

The bill for the checking of the U-joints by the specialist as well as the balance was about half what the poorer shop charged me initially. All said and done, I had new U-joints, a good balance job, and I took my wife to lunch with the money left over............

 

I think I have the same issue with my SS' driveshaft -- ujoints replaced, but was not balanced -- taking it to a shop to have it checked soon, but it also seems like the stock shaft is too short. Seems it is sticking too far out the trans.

 

Hi,
I am new on this forum but hope to be of some use to you all. Beware of greasable u-joints as they usually have a lot of end play when installed. This issue has become so bad that some joint manufacturers are including more than one thickness snap rings. End play will cause a high frequency irritation that will bother mirrors, shift levers and the seat of your pants. Always use the OEM style sealed u-joiints.

Also, aways mark the transmission yoke and the shaft before removing the yoke. It is balanced with the shaft at the factory and will cause vibrations issues if re-installed 180 out or on the wrong end as has been observed above.

Greg

 

I had my yoke removed when I had my new DS made. My vibration issue seems to be coming from the rear-end. It is a BIG hassle to figure out the root cause of some of these!