Haldex is TOAST. Culprit? Dealer tech "forgot" to refill.

I got the car back this afternoon. Here's the writeup:

VEHICLE DOES NOT ROLL TOWED IN TECH CONF CONCERN
NO FAULTS RE DRIVETRAIN STORED IN DTC TECH FOUND
LEFT REAR AXLE HAS TORN CV BOOT & INNER JOINT.
TECH REMOVED LEFT REAR AXLE & FOUND AXLE INNERQ
JOINT SEIZED. ROTATED RIGHT REAR WHEEL TO VERIFY
AXLE OK. HEARD METAL GRINDING NOISE AT REAR DIFF.
TECH CHECKED HALDEX FLUID, FOUND FLUID LOW. TECH
CHECKED REAR AXLE OIL, FOUND AXLE COMPLETELY DRY/
EMPTY. TECH FOUND HALDEX SEVERELY DAMAGED
INTERNALLY. TECH REPLACED LEFT REAR AXLE, BOLTS &
DIFFERENTIAL ASSY, FILLED BOTH HALDEX AND AXLE TO
PROPER FLUID LEVEL AND COMPLETED FOUR WHEEL
ALIGNMENT WITH ACC. TEST DROVE SEVERAL MILES TO
VERIFY THAT VEHICLE DRIVES STRAIGHT AND TO VERIFY
REPAIRS, CONFIRM NO ISSUES WITH REAR DIFFERENTIAL
AT THIS TIME
NOTE: DIFFERENTIAL SUPPLIED BY XXXXX VOLKSWAGEN ("Dealer A")

Total on this invoice - $1601.81, but that doesn't include the new diff, which was supplied by the dealer that made the mistake in the first place - no idea what that thing cost.

The car seems fine, with one minor annoyance - my steering wheel is now a few degrees off-center, and it was perfectly centered before the alignment job. So now I either have to put up with it, or drive all the way back (160 mile round trip) to get dealt with. Alignment seems spot-on. Otherwise, the car is its old self again. I'll decide by Monday if I want to have the steering wheel tinkered with, or just live with it. For now, just happy to have her back again after 20 days.

Good to hear you're back on the road.

So basically the monkey drained both the Haldex & the rear diff/final drive unit....& didn't bother re-filling...

darwin award contender...



as for the steering, I had that on my car new...I went back & got it re-done...& had to have it redone again as the steering wheel was out....

& did state to them quietly as I realised what had happened is that the VW bottom middle spoke does not work 100% with the lock bars that are commonly used to lock the steering wheel at 12 o'clock...so you end up with steering wheel "off"

An off center wheel will make you slightly mad every single time you drive it.

chiefhiawatha said:

An off center wheel will make you slightly mad every single time you drive it.

Click to expand...

Right, but the local dealer should be able to fix it and bill the other dealer.

chiefhiawatha said:

An off center wheel will make you slightly mad every single time you drive it.

Click to expand...

+1
This would drive me absolutely nuts.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

chiefhiawatha said:

An off center wheel will make you slightly mad every single time you drive it.

Click to expand...

Absolutely. I reached out to the service manager and he's very apologetic and is going to take care of it a week from today, when I have to run up to Tucson anyways, so I'm not making an "extra" trip, just a little detour.

Worth noting that my engine oil was also underfilled by just under a full quart by this same skilled technician. I noticed that immediately after the service the first time I gassed up, reported it then. Unfortunately turned out to be a precursor of bigger troubles.

I have requested a refund for the Haldex service portion of my invoice from the original dealer, and they are cutting me a check. All in all, everyone did a great job to rectify the situation once the damage was done.

I wonder if the tech that emptied your diff is still employed at the dealership.

Yeah, the real test of a dealership (or any place you spend your money) is not so much whether they screw up, but how they deal with the screw ups that will inevitably happen.

I would have a different tech do the alignment.

The Fed said:

I would have a different tech do the alignment.

Click to expand...

The alignment SEEMS spot-on - perhaps they will just pull the steering wheel and move it a spline or two? I don't care how they do it, as long as it's straight while the wheels are in proper alignment.

KevinC said:

The alignment SEEMS spot-on - perhaps they will just pull the steering wheel and move it a spline or two? I don't care how they do it, as long as it's straight while the wheels are in proper alignment.

Click to expand...

That's a bad idea unless you want your lock to lock steering to be asymmetrical.

KevinC said:

The alignment SEEMS spot-on - perhaps they will just pull the steering wheel and move it a spline or two? I don't care how they do it, as long as it's straight while the wheels are in proper alignment.

Click to expand...

What McJaggleToes said. And also it can adversely affect tire ware and handling.

McJaggleToes said:

That's a bad idea unless you want your lock to lock steering to be asymmetrical.

Click to expand...

Right. They need to clamp it on center and realign.

The EPS realigns the wheel every 20 miles. You can have crazy terrible alignment, and after driving 20 miles the EPS will adjust the car so that it drives as straight as possible when the wheel is centered.

I had major issues with this when I upgraded a gen 1 EPS to a gen 3 which had major changes (Steering Angle sensor changed to the rack instead of the clock spring with that change. After doing a hand alignment, it pulled like a bitch. I spent an hour messing with the alignment before giving up and sending it to the alignment shop. In the end I was within .002" spec (as in they didn't do anything because it was all in the green), and simply driving it to and from the alignment shop, recentered the wheel. 20k miles later on the car and still no issues.

A few weeks later I took a class by a ZF engineer (the company who makes our EPS) and talked about my issues, he quickly told me about the 20 miles and the fact it was normal. He also said that I was the first tech he had met who performed the upgrade. That was after two years of the upgrade being available and him teaching classes all over the USA.