Possible Transmission / Front Driveshaft Failure *edit* Rear Axle popped out
 

Hi,

Car 2005 e53 4.8is

I have been searching all morning and lots of great info the driveshaft failure, repair strategies etc, however as of right now the car is stranded and need to get it back home. Its only a few km's to home (admittedly up a hill), but just wondering thoughts are on;

1. Can I use a tow rope and another car to get the car home?
2. Whats the chances pulling front drive actuator fuse 46 would let car drive home in rwd?

Oh and symptoms, what happened;

• Drove into carpark, intermittent drive as pulling into spot. Kinda surged, and engine speed increased with little to no drive.
• Tried to engage reverse, where it would surge and momentarily have drive.
• Tried to engage drive, and all gears, some momentarily surge forward, then no forward drive. Had to push into carpark.
• Putting into park makes a loud graunching noise from the front of the car.

Thanks.
Sorry if this has already been covered.

*Edit*

Key points, problem, and fix see post #30
https://xoutpost.com/1160310-post30.html

SRacin - sorry to hear about your troubles, that sucks for sure.

To your question, I wouldn’t pull it home, being AWD that is usually frowned upon but yes, you should be able to pull the fuse, or unplug the actuator at the t-case and drive it home in RWD.

Check out a post on here called “E53 RWD Mode?”

Yea raise suspension all the way up. Maybe you can get under there and unplug the plug on the tcase actuator. Fuse may be simpler.

Thanks guys. Made a trip to the car at lunch-time. Pulled the fuse and made no difference. Graunching noise seems to be coming form the centre of the car, indicating the trans, more so than transfer case. eeek....

Someone mentioned that they can also strip actuator gears?

Actuator gear is actually on the t-case, that does happen but usually results in a dash light and codes and, all things considered.. is a pretty “simple” fix, usually just flipping the gear.

+1 for what SlickGt said, raise the suspension as high as you can get it and lay beside the car and pull it in and out of gear to try and narrow down where the noise is coming from. - Optimistically, it doesn’t really sound tranny ish.

Thanks again. Yea thats pretty much what I did, from the left hand side I could see the transfer case input (end of the front driveshaft), hope to see if I could see if this was rotating excessively, however this appear to be stationary, and when going into park (loud noise) was come from bottom of trans pan.

Do you have a scanning tool? Foxwell NT-510 or NT-520 are about the best and easiest to use although a little slow in navigating the menus. They run about 100 USD.

I had some transfer case issues before and flipped my gear, but.... I also had to get a new classification resistor (ViN specific) so check it also. You may be able to reset whatever is causing your problems if you're lucky.

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That stinks! Keep us posted on what you figure out.

Wpoll is in NZ, but I don't know if he's close to you. If he is he can probably give you a hand figuring out the issue or help you find the tools/scanner.

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The actuator gear doesn't do anything as far as the car moving or not and it wont help with towing it either. Think of it as just adjusting how much power goes to the front or back not if the front is engaged or not. Its full time 4wd no matter what. The actuator doesn't "engage" anything.

The actuator on my wife's e53 has been fried for over a year now. New unit is laying on my desk waiting to be installed :)

She has put around 30,000 miles on it with it broke.