RCW, I did check the front axle when it hit the ground on delivery day in July and it was low.
I filled it then, but I went ahead change it as well yesterday. Probably wasn't needed, but I'm the type of guy that feels that most factory assembly is not done in a perfectly clean environment.
Slightly thread-drift, but the factory “perfectly clean environment” comment caused me to recall the Cummins engine assembly plant in Columbus I visited during a convention 4 years ago. It was amazing how strict they were on cleanliness.
There was a small, isolated room with “rejected” parts and when asked, the explanation of a nearly complete and perfectly spotless, almost fully assembled engine, scheduled for destruction was sitting on a pallet. Someone in the tour-group asked why an engine that looked perfect was going to be completely destroyed. The answer was shocking:
“Video observation of the assembly line revealed a worker who was snacking on a cookie while arranging pistons in-order for assembly. (The worker had removed his glove to eat the cookie and touched a piston with his bare hand.). His supervisor was facing another direction and did not notice, but “fortunately, we caught it on the video and traced it to this engine.”
It wasn’t even during the assembly of that engine... it was while the pistons were being weighed and placed on a conveyor headed for installation in that particular block. Instead of inspecting and/or cleaning or disassembly and re-assembly.... Cummins sent that engine to a scrap-crusher.
That was an amazing tour. It was before the covid thing (2017) and we (the tour group) had to enter a negative-air-pressure clean-room to don paper-coveralls and wear masks and face-shields. All the workers were wearing smocks and white gloves. I doubt if a hospital operating room met the standards of that factory.
BTW, they had one of the first Dodge pickups with an early Cummins engine in it on display in ”as completed/off the Dodge assy-line” on display. Zero miles. (well, actually, it had 1.4 miles) Looked pristine, of course. Fun to look at.
