[s-cars] Help! Anyone ever hear of this??

[John Cody Forbes]

I've seen this happen before on a BMW. I never was able to come up with an answer as to why it happened, but I replaced both locking clips and the problem did not recur.

-Cody (mobile)

On Feb 2, 2011, at 11:45 PM, Steve Marinello <smarinello at entouch.net> wrote:

> The patient is an '07 A4 quattro. FOr the record, it has been modified 
> with Bilstein PSS9 coilovers, Hotchkiss bars and a Milltek exhausts 
> being items that might be argued to have somehow impacted the existing 
> scenario.
> 
> I stopped by my mechanic to have him change my oil, as I had not been 
> able to get around to it, had oil and filter cartridge, and he is 
> willing to do it for me.  He always gives the car a once over while it 
> is up, which has value that I appreciate.  While it was up, it was 
> noticed immediately that there was oil leaking from the rear 
> differential; bright, shiny clean oil, without any crud worked into it.  
> We immediately started looking or the source of the leak and were 
> shocked, seriously, to see that both stub/half shafts were not fully 
> 'pushed' into place in the differential.  The freakin' shoulder was 
> fully exposed on the driver's side.  WIth a large flathead screwdriver, 
> a hammer and some jiggling, the driver's side shaft slid in and landed 
> with a 'click'.  Assume a C-clip locked it in.  On the passenger side, 
> however, we could get no movement.  I had called the dealer, who of 
> course said, well, isn't that the modified car that went out of warranty 
> in April, and told me they were stacked for the next two days, so I 
> drove it home and parked it.
> 
> Now the history. When I shipped this car in from W. Virginia, with 16k 
> on it, it was inspected by both dealer and my mechanic and no issues 
> were found, as would be expected. Modified, but perfect. At about 28.5k, 
> my mechanic did an oil change and checked it out; nothing noticed except 
> front pads maybe 5k away from replacement.  A few weeks later, I found 
> out that there was still one oil change with the 30k service left on the 
> warranty, and got the car in under the wire, which meant that there were 
> only 1500 miles on the oil, but big deal, it was a free service.  I'll 
> have to check the exact mileages, but they're close to 28.5k and 30k.  
> The 30k service is not much more than an oil change and inspection, and 
> again, nothing stated...not even the brake pads, by the way.
> 
> So, last week after returning from the Mid East and picking the car up 
> at airport, I noticed some drops in the garage at the rear, and wondered 
> what/why there would be anything leaking back there.  Thought, maybe 
> they topped off fluids with the 30k service and overfilled it and 
> something is dripping off the diff...to be checked out with the oil 
> change.  Could not have expected what we found.  Oh yeah, the mileage is 
> 32,200 now.  Since the service, the ONLY service the car has seen is 50 
> miles to and from work on the interstate.  Not even a run out on the 
> rural roads west of here, which are the best I can find without heading 
> to Austin.
> 
> SO, anyone ever hear of anything like this?  Any ideas?  Is this just 
> the freakin' weirdest thing you've ever heard?
> 
> And, why won't the passenger slide shaft slide back in?  I'm betting a 
> busted C-clip blocking it off, or something.  I see $$$ and a warranty 
> expired and would really like to know how/why anything like this 
> could/would happen.  Cannot see any reason to drop the shafts to install 
> the coil-overs, exhaust or bar, and even then, all this work was done at 
> 11k , before I got the car.
> 
> What do you professional and amateur wrenches say about this one?
> 
> TIA,
> 
> Steve
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