This morning, whilst reversing into a parking place on a retail park, the offside rear wheel sheared off.

It was the piece that comes from the diff to the wheel, at the wheel end of the straight bar. (Sorry I am not technical).

Has this happened to anyone else?

Cant say ive ever had that happen,

and im sure you were beyond pi$$ed but

at least it didnt happen at speed

Yikes. Thank the stars you're safe. Got any pics?

Should have taken pix but was a bit stunned at the time.

There was no rust, whole car in nice nick so none of the engineers could figure out why this happened.

I have had a rear wheel leave the car before - however, that was an Austin Ruby and there were a lot of sparks flying and the wheel overtook me! It was a long time ago.

At least your in good humour about it...

I think id be still at the raging / slightly unbelieving stage.

Well Mac, I have learned that getting all eggy over something doesn't solve a thing - still finding it difficult to understand why and probably never will.

It's something I have never heard of "just happening" unless caused by a serious accident or similar.

I would be interested to see photos or what the eventual technical failure was in the end,

It's something I have never heard of "just happening" unless caused by a serious accident or similar.

I would be interested to see photos or what the eventual technical failure was in the end,

This!

Could only really (unlikely) a serious bearing failure.. but from what you describe it sounds more like a botched accident damage repair!.

I would like to see pics

Sounds like the stub axle has failed. Has the rear wheel bearing been replaced recently?

Er guys, if the OP doesn't have a 4x4 it didn't happen as described anyway, because there's no rear diff on the FWD models.

I had this happen to me when I was reversing the father in law skoda sdi on to the drive to do a rear wheel bearing :-)

Er guys, if the OP doesn't have a 4x4 it didn't happen as described anyway, because there's no rear diff on the FWD models.

i did think this, but he did say he wasn't techy so guessed he just didn't know the right terminology.

As said no rear diff, or IRS setup, i suspect it has to be the stub axle as already stated thats failed, not likely that its the whole rear beam..

Guys - this girl is not techie!

So now I have the part and have photographed it how do I put the pix on here?

Edited 7 June, 201313 yr by Brightone

So now I have the part and have photographed it how do I put the pix on here?

The easiest way is to register with photobucket, upload the images to there and the copy the direct link into the insert image option.

OK I have pix on Photobucket. What now?

Probably easiest to watch the second vid on here, much easier than me struggling to explain properly.

Copy paste the IMG tags into a post on here.

Pix. Sorry trying stuff. Think this is OK now.

Edited 7 June, 201313 yr by Brightone

i think "corroded to F£ck" sums those pictures up...

might get under my octy next week and have a little look around....

Blimey! has it been parked in the sea, Wasn't expecting pics like that I was expecting to see a mullered stub axle or something.

A lot of the damage is so old it's hard to see whether it's metal fatigue, or just a plain crack that's done it. No doubt massively aided by the corrosion.

My structural engineer's brain says it was weakened by the corrosion, which then caused slow progressing fatigue failure on the

Right hand side as seen in pic 1 - the failure line has recorroded i think which means it was hanging by a thread that side.

excessive load then shifted to a weakened left side which cudnt support the loading on its own and so

it failed - left hand failure line is quite clean, thats where it finally gave up.

as per my first post, this couldve gone at speed just as easily, and been a very different outcome...

If the car is a 4x4 that could have been caused by the ball joints seizing up. I have heard if it happening on early TTs before Audi modified the ball joints to improve sealing and prevent moisture getting in.