Same problem om my 2015 willys which I purchased with 60K miles. Spent a month at the dealer. They concentrated on suspension. Ultimately they finally pulled the cover off the differential. That's where the problem was. Had to replace carrier etc. Luckily I bought extended warranty. This is the first thing I told them to check....problem solved but exactly same clunking noise (2 pops on startup).
Dale Whitaker good call on the extended warranty. While I’m still very much a Jeep fan, I’ve noticed the quality and reliability has waived quite a bit over the years on these vehicles.
Update: Sorry for not updating the cause, but I wanted to make sure it was fixed. We found out after having our Jeep in the shop for almost a month, the problem was in the rear diff (we suggested checking the rear diff many time, but our suggestion fell on deaf ears). The issue ending up being the Trac-Lok clutches in the rear diff. They had a lot of wear, so they were sliding around. Hopefully this helps everyone. Thank you for watching!
Hi dale, first thank you very much for posting this video. i was very happy to hear this popping noise on you tube. i am suffering from the same exact problem on my 2013 wrangler sport. i would like to ask was it too expensive to fix , i had an advice to replace the whole rear diff. axle instead of trying to fix the cluthes. what do u think?
I've got a 16 JK with trac-lok, it makes the same clicking/popping noise when I go from reverse to forward or if I'm stopped and start to go, it doesnt happen every time just some times. Perhaps I'll change out the gear oil and add the lubricant. It's possible that some guys I had that changed out the gear oil didn't add the lubricant a year ago because they didn't think to ask if I had Trak loc on the rear dif. If that doesn't fix the issue I'll take it in to see if it can be fixed.
update, our JK has been in the shop again for 2 weeks for this same issue. Hopefully we get it back Tuesday or Wednesday with no popping noise, so I can let everyone know what the issue was.
Jeepinwargammer, it ended up being the E brake pads separated and were binding up. So the dealer replaced the rotors, rear pads, E brake shoes, bearings, and seals on both sides. All covered under our warranty from the dealership we purchased the JK from. Normally not covered under warranty, but the dealership had replaced the brakes on the JK before we bought it. After all that was replaced, we haven't had any issues.
