Spent 7 hours organising and waiting for recovery to take the pile of ****e home!
Turns out my 'free' breakdown recovery only covers 10 miles. Not much use when I'm 82 miles from home and regularly commute 100 miles each way. Today was the first I knew of this. Spent ages phoning around but only the RAC would let me join on the day and still recover- but they would only take me 50 miles and charge £140. Then charge another £140 for the final 30 miles!! Bastids.. IN the end I used
Oxford Breakdown Recovery service - Car and van breakdown recovery and despite his busy schedule he managed to get to me eventually and take me home. Very, very nice chap and BIG into his cars, particularly his Nissan Patrols- the old 4.2 diesels which he overlands regularly. And one with a 5" lift and 35" tyres...
Anyhow- this is what happened.
I was mooching along the A34 as usual at about 65mph when suddenly a back tyre blew out big time. Car felt very stable, but I slowed down bloody sharpish (not many cars around thankfully!!) and drove the 100ft or so to the exit slip for the A415 for Abingdon. Damn, damn lucky to happen right on the markers for the junction! Car making lots of horrible noises so I suspected I was down to the rim and made my way slowly onto the nearest flat grass verge. And got out... to find all tyres fine. Oops. Popped bonnet and all looked fine. Took splash guard off and belts fine too. Hmm... Engine ran sweet as usual so I'm getting worried now that the IRD had blown. Looked ok, but damage must be internal. Tried to walked about the roundabout under the flyover and found a flat paved area which would be safer, out of the rain, and better for getting underneath for a shufty. Car just wheelspun of course. Eventually the TC helped and it moved off the grass but I was revving a sickly car much more than I wanted. And it wouldn't reverse properly. IN fact, any movement felt like someone slammed the brakes on after a foot. Anyhow, very slowly made it around to the safe zone. By now I'm convinced the IRD is shot to bits and it sounded like gears were loose too and felt like the handbrake was on half the time. (I'm sure some of you know the answer already, but be patient). When we tried to winch it on the flatbed, the rears locked and skidded sideways, but clever winching sorted that. And then I could see the oil coming out the rear diff which added to the puddle under the IRD. Oh great- that's £650 for an IRD and £250 for a diff, and I can't do an IRD on my drive, so labour too. Damn. My local garage already said no. They always say that when it's the Freelander so I shall not bother them again. ****ers.
So, we get home after a long good chat and struggle to get it off the bed. It's now obvious the rear diff was proper knurdled. I let my laughing mate reverse it up the drive while I observe and ALL the graunching, clanking noise is from the rear diff. Hmm... and the IRD is not leaking oil- it must have been AC water. So if I'm lucky, only the rear diff has blown and everything else is fine. As y'all know, I fitted a Bell's VCU and GKN bearings 3 months (10k miles) ago and all was good. There's been no noises or anything so all a bit sudden. After I'd emptied the van for tomorrow, it was too late to look so I'll take props off and jack it up Thursday and report back. The van fired up and drove fine despite not moving for 2 months. If only everything in life was as reliable as my Volkswagon T5?
I'm now losing faith in the Freelander. yYs I might be able to change the diff and all will be good as everything else is sound AFAIK and all works - but I can't afford to be stranded like that again. Thank the gods that today was a quiet day and my work could wait til tomorrow. Drove my mate's X Trail when I got back and it felt very nice. Never thought I'd be saying that...