Cardan shafts are widely used in various fields from agriculture, vehicles to industrial machinery. Due to the complexity of the agricultural process, agricultural PTO shafts are the most susceptible to damage. PTO shaft elements are subjected to combined bending, twisting, shearing and surface pressure stresses. The limiting factors for the use of agricultural PTO shafts are the frequent changes in the angles at which the shafts are used, strong shock loads, the complexity of the bearing assembly mechanism, etc. During exploitation, due to overloading, various types of material destruction and breakage of cardan shaft parts may occur. In this research, the goal was to look at the reliability of cardan shafts, which in practice is very low, from the point of view of damage to the elements of bearing assemblies on cardan shafts.