4x4 transmission noise

[J.R.]

I did the first long and fast journey with the Yeti bringing it over to France, after eventually switching off the music towards the end of the journey I heard noise from the back that was not present before, having just changed the Haldex oil & cleaned the filter I wondered whether I had perhaps replaced the diff oil by mistake?

 

It came in above 60 MPH & it sounded like the LHR wheel bearing but did not change tone when loaded/unloaded by slaloming so decided it must be the diff bearings, still present if I declutched but while coasting at speed I could make it come and go by revving to 2.5K and then letting the revs drop as if a resonance from a bad engine mount was travelling down the propshaft. I had pushed & pulled the outer steel harmonic balancer when servicing the Haldex & the rubber seemed OK.

 

Today with the car unloaded and the seats back in the normal position it was quieter, then when I put the sealing flap I made as part of the home made variofloor back in the correct position to effectively seal off the load compartment I can no longer hear the whine.

 

So are they simply badly insulated, do you hear transmission noise on your 4x4 when the seats are lifted and/or the parcel shelf removed? It does indeed sound like the diff noise from a RWD panel van or my Caterham, both my Octavias have been well insulated with perhaps just a hint of wind noise from the rear hatch when the seats folded forward.

[Frenchtone]

I have the seats out of my 4x4 most of the time( I carry model boats in boxes to shows / competitions etc. I do have a spare wheel and raised floor, however no discernible change in noise level when seats and roll out shelf  fitted and no whine etc.

Car has covered about 65k  mls

[Sad555]

Always considered the transmission pretty quiet,as they are front wheel drive and only use the haldex on demand but there again my haldex wasn’t working for 6 months so are you getting the noise with or without haldex.?

[Trevor M]

If you are not sure whether you have replaced the diff. oil with Haldex oil, and the noise started after the oil change, I think you know where to start your investigation. Seriously expensive damage has been reported to have been caused by doing this.

[Urrell]

Did you recheck and top up the Haldex after a short run after you changed the oil in it?

[J.R.]

4 hours ago, Trevor M said:

If you are not sure whether you have replaced the diff. oil with Haldex oil, and the noise started after the oil change, I think you know where to start your investigation. Seriously expensive damage has been reported to have been caused by doing this.

 

Looking at the diagram shown on this web page I most certainly have made a grave error 😞

 

https://www.haldexrepairs.co.uk/generation-5-haldex-fault-finding-repair-guide/

 

I drained the diff oil unknowingly & therefore simply topped up the Haldex oil after dropping the pump down & cleaning the gauze filter, have done far too many miles since loaded and at 130kph to have got away with this one 🙄

 

Cant buy any diff oil either now we are on lockdown.

 

In my defence I was recovering from eye surgery and even now cannot see and read the writing in black identifying the diff drain plug, the fluid that came out was  clean and looked like Haldex fluid, the hole sizes were far too small to drain or refill gear oil as I know it, perhaps the modern stuff is very thin, I compared the fluids, they looked similar.

 

I also had a fellow Briskodian watching over me to make sure I didn't do anything stupid but errors of communication happen, its my fault, I am far too gung ho when I work on vehicles, overfamiliarity.

 

There were a couple of warning signs that I did heed, the (Haldex) filler plug took a 12 point torx bit, the diff drain plug was identical size but took an Allen key bit, when refilling (which was really topping up) the oil there seemed to be airlocks, the quantity mentioned on the web varied what I put in was at the lower limit but I could not account for how much had dribbled out from what I thought was an airlock but was actually overfilling.

 

I really had my doubts but even with the car jacked up to the maximum of my garage trolley jack & stands theer was little height, from the side you can only see one filler & drain plug which appeared to be on the same casting, had my eyes & memory been better I had known to find the front facing filler I would have had to be beside the propshaft looking backwards and not under the NS driveshaft.

 

Finally the volume that drained out did not seem anywhere near enough to be the axle oil & it didn't have the distinctive axle oil smell, perhaps that has changed.

 

In any case I only have myself to blame, will go out now to do the Haldex drain & refill properly and the diff will have to content itself with engine oil until motor outlets open again in 5 months, there will be so much metal swarf inside that it does not really matter.

 

 

Edited 19 March, 2020 by J.R.

[Sad555]

The next big of surgery looks like being on your wallet Or getting the hatchet out of your briskoda mates head....................I feel for you.

[J.R.]

Hey these things happen when your country is at war (Macrom said that 6 times in his addresss) you dont want to see whats holding the car off the ground at present because you cannot even visit a friend to borrow 2 more axle stands without risking a fine or being denounced.

 

I am getting up the courage to confess how I have probably screwed the aircon pump as well 😞

[bargee1759]

You can still order online for home delivery from the likes of Eurocarparts, (I changed my rear brakes yesterday) so no need to wait or go out unnecessarily & further ruin the diff!

[J.R.]

Wrong country, nobody goes out unnecessarily here, you get 1km and a €135 fine if you are lucky.

 

Diff has been flushed & refilled, vehicle will remain on stands until I have need to go further than my push bike will take me and am allowed to do so, I reckon about 6 months.

 

By then I will hopefully have forgotten all about my screw up and become even more deaf.

 

[langers2k]

10 minutes ago, J.R. said:

Wrong country, nobody goes out unnecessarily here, you get 1km and a €135 fine if you are lucky.

 

From what I can make out, it's business as normal for eurocarparts in France?

 

At least there are no obivous warnings on their homepage... https://www.eurocarparts.com/fr_fr

[J.R.]

I dont need anything Langers and anything ordered from another country like the brake discs & backplates get here really quickly but then sit for at least a week, a month if from China before even being looked at by La Poste who do the final leg of nearly all the deliveries here.

 

I didn't know that ECP had a .fr presence but I can say with 99.99999999999999% certainty that it will be no more than a French website and a company registered to an accomodation address, it would simply be another order recieved and fullfilled from the UK, most likely cheaper to order it from the UK site with a French delivery address if it allows.

 

Nobody except the terminally insane would open a physical presence in France unless there is no other way, Screwfix service France from Ireland, Toolstation from Holland, many many EU companies service the whole of the EU and the rest of the world but exclude France, I am always coming up against that with ebay purchases.

 

I will never buy from ECP again unless it was life or death.

 

I have 6 months to sort out every niggle on the car.

[SuperbTWM]

On 19/03/2020 at 10:05, Sad555 said:

Always considered the transmission pretty quiet,as they are front wheel drive and only use the haldex on demand but there again my haldex wasn’t working for 6 months so are you getting the noise with or without haldex.?

 

All the the rear drive components all spin while the vehicle is moving, prop shaft, Haldex, rear diff and driveshafts so any grumbling bearings will make a noise no matter whether torque is being transmitted or not.

 

@J.R. I can only imagine how angry you are at yourself and I admire you for sharing this amusing story (I apologise if you are not ready to joke about it yet) It is a great reminder that no matter how daft you are, somebody will always make a bigger **** up 

 

If it makes you feel better, the guys at the VW dealer where a work colleague went to get his mk5 R32 Haldex serviced, forgot to put oil in the Haldex. So he ended up getting a new Haldex and rear diff fitted FOC which is always a nice bonus getting new parts for nothing

Edited 31 March, 2020 by SuperbTWM

[J.R.]

When you lose vision suddenly combined with becoming an old fart with no memory or attention span you have to learn to accept the inevitable, its still a lot better than paying someone else to **** it up for you and give you some free lies as compensation

 

I can definitely see a lot of people making this mistake, I found the correct filler plug from the photos on the internet, was 100% confident it was the haldex filler, directly beneath it, directly not for or aft but directly underneath at the bottom of the same casting was a drain plug, obviously the Haldex one right? - Wrong 😞 that is tucked around the front obscured by the propshaft coupling and looks exactly the same as all the bolts on the same flange around it holding the castings together, it does not resemble a drain plug whatsoever.

 

Likewise the diff filler plug is offset at the rear but can be seen and does look like a filler plug.

 

 

With your own vehicle you are aware of what you have worked on & will be alerted like me at the first sign of a noise, someone who always pays a garage may not & the garages default response is always no fault found, sounds alright to me, I can hear anything amiss or they all do that sir. The stories that I have read on here about exploding diffs after a Haldex service I am convinced were down to the garages making the same mistake and the drivers ignoring the transmission noise until it was too late.

 

I might have got away with it as it will not have been transmitting torque on nearly all the 500 miles I did but I whince at the memory of the few drag starts done on loose surfaces to establish that the Haldex was working after the service 🙁

[J.R.]

Resurrecting this topic.

 

I got some gearbox oil locally flushed the diff with paraffin while running with all 4 wheels off the ground then refilled with the new oil, that was nearly 3 months ago but with our properly enforced and respected confinement here I did not get the opportunity to test the vehicle any more than 100m or so and have been doing all my journeys by bike.

 

Now the 100km limit has also been lifted I have used the car a bit and got everything warm and travelled at up to a maximum of 70mph but not carrying a heavy load for a long distance like when I did the journey with the differential dry of lubricant.

 

I can hear some transmission noise now but of course I have my ear open for it, its only discernible above 60mph, not particularly intrusive and does not seem to be getting any worse, it does not sound any different to the transmission noise from the rear of say a Suzuki Jeep with the 4WD disengaged, just the slight drone of the CWP bearings.

 

I have asked the question of another forum member who owns both a FWD and a 4x4 Octavia whether the Scout has a transmission noise that the FWD one doesn't & he says it does, from his description it sounds like the noise that I have, I dont think the Yeti has such good soundproofing and the sealing around the parcel shelf to the rear compartment is not as good, also I sit closer to the rear axle in the Yeti.

 

So I want to ask the question to the general forum if any of you have experience of both FWD and 4x4 versions of any model be they Octavia, Superb, Yeti or other common platform VAG vehicles is there any additional transmission noise on the 4x4 version audible to your ears?

 

I may have been lucky with my bêtise but without the feedback from the forum it would be years before I would have the confidence to go on a long trip with the vehicle fully loaded and/or towing a large trailer as recovery type breakdown insurance does not exist here.

 

Thanks in anticipation.

Edited 11 June, 2020 by J.R.

[kenfowler3966]

I have had 2 2wd yetis before and currently have a 4wd and have noticed no additional noise from the rear.

[J.R.]

Thanks Ken!