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Lilly

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    Fort Collins Colorado
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    subaru baja differential explosion
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    My rear differential on my Baja tried to explode. Im curious if anyone here knows if this is a secretly super common thing or if there was one of those recall for repair notices that my dealership never told me about.
  • Vehicles
    Baja

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  1. Hey Posters, Thank you so much for replying. I purchased the Baja new. Every now and again we would check the rear differential oil to make sure the level is good and the oil was clean. I really haven't abused my poor Baja. At the time the car had about 115,000 miles on it. The oil was leaking out of the cracks in the casing. There were no leaks prior to the explosion event to give the broken bit away. It has been one of the vehicles of choice used in moving from apartment to apartment. But you really can't fit enough stuff in the back to be "too heavy". The worst load was when we hauled some carpet to the landfill. That was the first hint that anything could be wrong because there were some grindy type noises then that we were "going to look at later". The carpet wasn't very heavy based on the receipt from the landfill. Did put an OEM trailer hitch on it but only ever hauled a sport trailer from uhaul once that was less than half full of stuff. Does seem like the car suffered from a random mechanical failure based on everything you guys said. The boys tried to drive the car up the driveway so that we could get it in the garage. That's when the whole back of the casing fell off and the gears tumbled out. Coming up on the car you would have thought someone had already started taking things apart. Based on the amount of oil leaked out on the street and the mess on the driveway when it all fell apart, the boys think that it had plenty of oil in it when it failed. Also the oil really was a clean as it looked. Ultimately, I got a used rear differential with 45,000 miles on it and the boys installed it in the car. Gotta say though, all those little creaky sounds make me even more nervous though. My poor boys... Thanks again for all your info!
  2. I tend to count on my male folks to let me know when to stress about my car or not. Left to my own devices every little noise would get my heart rate up. Well, now my rear differential tried to explode on me. Can't even drive the Baja up the driveway to get it into the garage. Something about the clutch not having enough friction. The boys are coming round for beers and car work later so it is about to get pulled all apart. For now I have one picture of the crack in the rear differential. You'll note that there is oil actively leaking out of the rear differential so it wasn't that I lost lubrication and then it broke. Seems to me like one of those things that doesn't ever really happen. Anyone got any pointers or potential causes of the failure?
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