In this work the regimes of contact in misaligned crowned splined couplings have been analyzed. Experimental tests have been performed in order to identify if fretting damage on the components appears as fretting wear or fretting fatigue. A significant difference was identified on the surface of specimen by analyzing two different tests; the first test emphasized a fatigue damage and in the second test a wear phenomena has been achieved. Also a good correlation has been obtained by analyzing the fretting map obtained by using the Mindlin's theory and experimental result