# Exploded rear differential



## rawzer (Jan 5, 2011)

Hi all,
Hoping for some advice.

I have a 57 TT Quattro with about 38k on the clock that came out of its warranty in about September. I have always had my cars serviced by the authorised dealerships but when the big service came up in late Novermber the price was over £700. Although the price came down to £660 I opted instead to take it to a recommended VW/Audi specialist who did the job for just over £500.

Then catastophe hit - driving at about 60 mph (really!) in the inside lane of a dual carriageway i got a huge thud through the bottom of the car and began to lose power. I looked to pull over but almost immediately a second thud hit and more power went, i had just enough to pull over onto the verge. I shudder to think what woudl have happened if i had been doing 80mph in the outside lane when this happened, i cant see how i coudl have got across the carriageway with no power. Still i am in one piece so thats something.

RAC man looked the vehicle over and said he suspected damage to the rear differential. It was towed and ended up at the my local dealership. On review by the dealier ship it seems the rear differential has smashed itself up with two huge cracks around the casing. The dealer says its almost certainly a result of an incorrect haldex oil change. I am none technical so i simply passing this on as it was reported to me.

Now i am stuck because the garage who did the service say they would never have made such a basic mistake so dont believe they are responsible nor that their responsibility can be demostrated while the audi dealership are saying that Audi guidance, including photographic material from Audi, says that Audi will not pay out on warranty (which as i said has expired) or good will for this type of damage shortly after a haldex oil change.

So I am faced with a £4.5k bill for a massive part failure on a car thats only done 37k miles and which could have been the cause of some serious injury.

i dont know who i should be pursuing with regard to paying, it really doesnt feel like i should shoulder this. I fear Audi, the dealership and the servicing garage will each simply pass the blame to the othe.

Rawzer


----------



## ScoobyTT (Aug 24, 2009)

What a nightmare  Is there any way of getting a sample of the oil that's left, and getting its type confirmed? If it's wrong, you'll have a leg to stand on. Are there any such services available to Joe Public? :?


----------



## rawzer (Jan 5, 2011)

There may be. The car is sitting in its failed state at the dealership while i try to work out what to do next. What do you think the oil might tell me?

BTW the servicing garage have asked their insurers to send an engineer, but i dont really see why he isnt just going to say its not their fault.

Rawzer


----------



## TTRS_500 (Aug 29, 2010)

4,5k for a rear diff sounds a bit expensive


----------



## rawzer (Jan 5, 2011)

apparantly as a result of the differential failure the drive shafts are damaged too and need replacing too 
plus labour etc


----------



## wja96 (Mar 4, 2010)

rawzer said:


> i dont know who i should be pursuing with regard to paying, it really doesnt feel like i should shoulder this. I fear Audi, the dealership and the servicing garage will each simply pass the blame to the othe.
> 
> Rawzer


You will have to pursue the garage who did the oil change. If Audi are saying it was an incorrect Haldex oil change then that's your evidence for the small claims court. Ask them for that in writing and you've got a decent chance of winning I reckon.


----------



## MXS (May 10, 2010)

ScoobyTT said:


> What a nightmare  Is there any way of getting a sample of the oil that's left, and getting its type confirmed? If it's wrong, you'll have a leg to stand on. Are there any such services available to Joe Public? :?


That sounds like a plan, I hope there is an independant analysis laboratory who would be able to confirm if the incorrect oil was indeed used in the last service.. Good luck with your search in finding one.


----------



## rawzer (Jan 5, 2011)

I may be wrong, but i think Audi are implying the oil was drained but not replaced in the correct manner resulting in little or no oil being present. Though this is to some extent at odds with the RAC man whose first comment was that there was oil all over the rear differential which led him to suggest (correctly as it turned out) that thats where the problem lay.

So far i cant get audi themselves to say anything to me directly. The dealer has provided me with a photo of the damage to my car, along with a matching photo and statement from what they say is their 'guidance' from audi stating "The above damage shortly after a haldex oil change cannot be claimed under goodwill or warranty."

I am trying to get Audi to clarify on what basis they make that statement, but audi customer services say they dont know what guidance i am talking about <sigh>

rawzer


----------



## Hoggy (May 8, 2002)

Hi, Just a thought, As the haldex oil is different to the rear diff oil, & the diff has its on lubrication, would wrong haldex oil cause the diff to explode. Has the garage that did the oil change put haldex oil in the diff. Get evidence from Audi garage if you can,but it looks as if garage that did the oil change may be responsible, getting evidence will be the prob.
Hoggy.


----------



## wja96 (Mar 4, 2010)

The sue Audi UK as well as the differential should last longer than 37,000 miles or 3 years. That should make them state the issue was the oil change and you have your evidence against the garage. Small claims court is very easy and cheap.


----------



## ScoobyTT (Aug 24, 2009)

Some oil analysis companies (plucked from Bing, no personal recommendations here):

http://www.monition.com/oil_analysis.htm

http://www.theoillab.co.uk/home.html

http://www.expertees.ltd.uk/oilanalysis.php


----------



## andharri (May 18, 2009)

Might be worth trying Honest John http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/

He has a column in The Telegraph and regularly gets letters coming in with similar sort of issues (expensive repairs and no-one claiming responsibility etc).

He usually gives good advice so worth a shot

HTH


----------



## karlak (Jul 18, 2010)

Just a thought here.

You heard "two" thuds. Could something in the road have damaged the casing, the oil leaks, and then the second thud is the diff eating itself...

If this "was the case" and you feel you are flogging a dead horse with the two dealers, then surely this is now an insurance issue. Not suggesting de-frauding anyone, but if it did happen like this then an insurance excess would be a lot better (in my case anyway) than a 3-4k repair bill....


----------



## TT-driver (Sep 14, 2010)

+1.

An expert should also be able to judge if the damage was done to
1) faulty oil and as a result much increased wear (I'd expect the diff to start singing first rather than explode without any warning)
2) no oil at all, or blocked filter and hence hardly any lubrication
3) an external object breaking the diff and cogs damaged by the impact resulting in the whole thing bursting into pieces.

Ebay.de: Haldex diff: max 800 euro.


----------



## rawzer (Jan 5, 2011)

thanks for comments to date.
an engineer from the servicing garages insurance company is going to look at the car on Friday; so i guess at that point i will be a little clearer on what they believe the cause is.
will update the thread at that point

rawzer


----------



## Dash (Oct 5, 2008)

Make sure the engineer is asked to determine the cause of the damage. Often they are just used to confirm which parts need replacing so the insurer knows you're not trying to get something replaced which shouldn't be.


----------



## stevebeechTA (May 16, 2009)

Sorry to here about your diff mate  
If you can, I would ensure i was at the garage when the Ins assessor was there. then you can get his thoughts on whats the cause, oil or something in the road.


----------



## rawzer (Jan 5, 2011)

Can anyone give me a steer on where to get at documentation for Audi Technical Service Bulletins? The service garage has given me a Transaction Number of 2016846/4 for the relevant item but I am not getting very far trying to turn that into a document.

Current state of play btw is that Audi are continuing to be disinterested in doing any further engineering analysis on the fault having decided it looks like the one in their service bulletin. While the engineer dispatched by the servicing garages Insurance Company is apparently suggesting a 'catastrophic part failure' unrelated to lubricants. His theory is that the relevant part (I assume some pieces of the rear differential) were structurally unsound and the reason this blew up on 20th December was because the cold weather and ice had meant the rear wheel drive was being regularly brought into play, stressing the flawed part and causing a failure. The logic being that most of the time the part was not under stress because the rear wheel drive was not being invoked in normal driving conditions.

btw service centre have indicated they dont believe this is in anyway related to any kind of road or impact damage, so its a bad service or a bad part

(para999 - i crawled it from the verge to the nearest safe area at request of RAC, about 1/2 mile at about 10 mph. It was then dispatched on a low loader rather than towed)

Meanwhile I am enjoying the thrills of my mothers 1.4l VW Fox [smiley=bigcry.gif]

richard


----------



## wobbie_t (Jan 16, 2011)

Hi 
I am a Audi tech. 
the audi dealer is correct in what they are saying, i have seen this befor as well. when a back street dealer carries out an haldex oil change the drain the wrong part of the diff and then fill the diff section with haldex oil, not diff oil and after a few miels the diff exspiers as your has done. you need to find out what oil has been put into the diff. and you wont find any audi technical bullitins online as they are kind keeped secret to a point. (but some have leaked online)
hope this make its a bit more clear for you.


----------



## troytower (Jun 14, 2011)

I recently bought a used 2008 audi quattro 3.2 (one previous owner) from Carmax(an American nationwide dealership)

Yesterday the rear differential had to be replaced due to it doing the exact same thing as described by the poster of this topic. I was only going 40 mph. WEAK! Thankfully it happend before the warranty ran out. Not sure if its common for the rear differential to fail on Quattros? Only 32,000 miles on it. Thoughts? I have a sneaking suspicion that the previous owner beat the shit out of the car, looks can be deceiving.

I love the Audi but I hope I'm not in for some serious stress in the post warranty future.

Troy


----------

