Thread: Rear diff issues

Originally Posted by rangietragic

I don't know if its possible but can you just change to a salisbury?

Sorry but I must have hit an "enter" key without knowing...

As I was writing, I don't know enough about rear axles from the TD5 and later, but I doubt if you could swap out a sals axle for the P38. But if you could you'd also need to replace the rear prop shaft (or possibly get a special made up if the geometries differ).

Yes you can drop a Salisbury from an early TD5 Defender into a PUMA. Bolts straight in. BUT you lose a small chunk of ground clearance, and finding good Salisbury defender diffs can be hard. And with the rear prop shaft etc, you are going to spend $2-3000.

Once you get through the breaking in period on a P38 Diff, they can last very well. So I'd say it's not worth the cost to put a great big lump of iron between your rear wheels - better to spend the money on an Ashcroft upgrade. Plus you are spending a couple of grand on a brand new shiny diff with warranty, not some used axle with questionable age etc. (And the Salisbury is not without issues either. The 110 model with the thin axle tubes can be bent or suffer cracks etc.)

Regarding the quality control - Landrover build these defenders from a kit of parts. Over the years they have jobbed out the various components to various manufacturers. My observation from comments I've picked up from various Land Rover people is that they have changed diff manufacturers once or twice - and that there was chunk of diffs with very poor quality. I'm not sure the latest manufacturer of those diffs is any better - but I would guess that Land rover will make them pay for the repairs and eventually they will either fix the quality issues or pull out.

Out of all of the failed diff - none of them has broken so as to cause me to have it towed - they all just started making noise.

My original diff in the SVX (MY2009) was quite and smooth. I pulled it out at 50k still working perfectly. I still have wrapped up in plastic sitting in a box.

Replaced with the HDP38 Ashcroft hypoid centre with locker, for no other reason that the amount of "Dooms Day" prediction for the original centre.

The Salisbury axel need to come from the late 2002 / early 2003 TD5's as you need the ABS. They are few and you will pay for it if you can find one. During 2003 TD5's changed to the P38 axel.

Originally Posted by simmo

Guys what an inserting thread

If I haven't read it here i would never have known about that. I didn't count but collectively I think you guys talked bout the destruction of over 50 differentials, over a few years .

What concerns me, is the product QA, it shakes my faith in modern LR production. The differential has been in production and use for 100 years I think. There are common massed produce examples that have run for 400, 000 Kms. But we're talking about a modern massed produced car when the differentials can fail at 5000 to 10,000 kms. MY thoughts are if they can't make a differential, how can we trust them to make a car for us? that will cost us years salary, and our families relay on? I'd be heartbtroken if that was my newish car with the diffs failing all the time, and too frightened to drive it far from home. My be too much focus on electronic gadgets and on not enough focus on the basics, 4 wheels and a reliable drive line.

You only hear of the troubled ones,your Tdi had issue's from new with timing belts,shaft wear in the R380,cracked cylinder heads etc,now with it's age there's lots to go wrong,are you worried about that?. Pat

Good question Pat, your point about the early Tdi cam belt problems is well taken, same as the early problems with R380 shaft breaking in the transfer case. Problems that could have been identified during R&D. There's a photo I can still remember 15 years later. In one of the magazines 1/2 page, a defender being lifted onto the back of a 8x8 tray truck in the middle of the desert. ( broken input shaft/gear in TC). Cost of the transmission & TC repair 5k. Negative publicity priceless. Land Rover R&D at work. That's why I never bought a defender until I could afford a post 95 model Tdi with the the cross drilled TG gears & timing belt problem sorted etc, by 95 LR customers had done 10 years of R&D on the car.

I guess I'm complacent after a 100,000 kms of trouble free motoring, ( car total 200 K),you know the bathtub curve, i guess I'll come to the up part at the end one day. When everything starts to fails because it's old.
That's Ok I accept that, it's my choice, I drive an old cheap car, it goes with the territory, and I can afford to fix it. I don't think I could afford the repair costs on the more modern cars. I wouldn't be as accepting of failure driving a 50 or 60k car only a few years old. My impression is you need fairly big O&M budget for RR , D-3, D-4.

LR s a quality manufacturer, a big rash of differential breakages drive shaft problems etc, electrical problems, suspension problems, hurts their image and damages customer confidence. Many of them could be avoided. But all problems aside they must be doing some thing right , because they can't keep up with demand

There has been a lot of talk elsewhere of doing an early engine oil change, say 10,000. Do you think there is merit in doing the entire driveline as well?

I've done lots and lots of outback driving in LR's and I don't worry at all about breaking diffs or gearbox's or what ever,never upgraded anything either and so has many many other people who drive LR's in the bush,drive to the conditions and don't overload and no worries all else being equal.I have over serviced my TDCi,it has done some very hard driving in very hot(50+ degree) conditions so I have changed all the drive line oils four times in 90,000K's,post 200Tdi engines I always recommend 10K engine oils,Tdi/Td5/Td6 etc are very clean running engines,changing earlier is just wasting good oil. Pat

I change motor/box/TC and both diffs every 10,000k's.

Sometimes earlier if the service doesn't line up with a trip that could be completed with the km's that are left.

Wasting oil.....may be ?

Happy to do it.... You bet !

Failures = Zero