My apologies to Nitto Tires. A little less than a year ago I replaced my almost worn-out Michelin LTX M/S2's with Nitto Dura Grapplers; I loved the Michelins but money was tight at the time and the Nittos were a little over $200 cheaper for the set of four.
At first, I was satisfied with them; they rode well in wet or dry weather, albeit they did ride a lot harder than the Michelins. The last couple of months I've been feeling vibration in the steering wheel, but the wheel wasn't shaking and didn't feel like an imbalance issue and I knew the alignment was good. I figured the vibration was due to the tires now that they had a few thousand miles on them and were wearing-in.
Last week I noticed a bad, front driveshaft U-joint, but I still figured the vibration was likely due to the tires as it occured in 2WD mode and the rear U-joints appeared to be good. Based on their history of failures and 136,000 mi. on my 06 LE, I decided to replace all four sets of U-joints. The rear joint on the front shaft was completely trashed and both joints were replaced with a set of Moog severe-duty joints with grease fittings on the caps. The rear shaft joints were fine with no play and grease inside the caps, but I installed a new set of Dana-Spicer U-joints, also with grease fittings on the caps.
One thing I noticed is that when I turned the front wheels, the front driveshaft also turned, which makes me assume that the front shaft turns even when in 2WD mode rather than just in 4WD or "AUTO" mode. This would make sense since there is no 4WD hub in the front and they use a conventional wheel bearing hub assembly with a hat-style brake rotor.
After installing the new U-joints, the vibration is gone and the tires, while they still ride harder than the Michelins, ride like they did when they were new. So, for the bad-mouthing of my Nitto Tires, I hereby apologize! They're a very good tire...but I still like my old Michelins better!

This brings up a question ... Aprox how many miles can I expect to get out of the U-joints? And how many U-joints on my 2012 V6 R51? The joints on my 2006 Toyota 4Runner had grease fittings and I would grease them every other oil change and I never had to replace them in nearly 200,000 miles of owning the truck. I know many SUV's and pickup trucks come with the non grease type joints it seems common now.

smj999smj I know you have a good amount of miles on your R51 was this the first or second set of U-joints that you had to replace on your truck?

I'm over 125k miles and no issues with u-joints. Or anything really. I've replaced shocks/struts and sway bar bushings but otherwise all those sealed joints and bushings are performing well and without noise.

I replaced my rear u-joint at the diff at 190k kms, so almost 120k miles.

Haven't been really good with the grease since then. Dang. Good thing I have an oil change to do this weekend so I can rectify that!

t

I have 135,000 miles on my Pathy and purchased it with 84,000 mi. To the best of my knowledge they were original and they were Spicer U-joints, which is what they came with. The rear U-joint on the front shaft was completely void of grease and the roller bearings in the one cup were destroyed. They other three joints looked good, but as I said, because of their history on Pathfinders and since I was there, I went ahead and replaced all four U-joints. They're not that expensive.