XSeries-forum

[quote="Horizon"]
[quote="Pete"]
Update:

The garage called. A driveshaft had popped out of the diff,  it seems to have seated back in securely and everything is working again!

Fingers crossed that is it and I can start enjoying the X again.

Cost of repair - £30!
[/quote]

Great result

I don't care what the roads or adverse cambers are like, there must be something else wrong. That is suggesting that you couldn't take an X5 off road without the/a driveshaft popping out. There must be excess sideways movement in one or both UJs, bad or damaged diff bushes/mounting points. Depending on age, in past ownership someone has fitted a wrong driveshaft. If someone told me they'd or it popped back in an said it should be ok, I'd be crapping myself every time I drove it and certainly wouldn't  want the wife or kids in it till I got a better answer than you have. Just an opinion.

I am with Henry here, driveshafts don't just "pop out" or "pop back in" something is definitely wrong. The splines in the diff and on the drive shaft could be damaged (as it's popped out once) mounting bushes and bolts need checking plus all the suspension bushes. Something underneath is out of kilter to let that happen in the first place has the drive shaft been replaced with a wrong part at sometime perhaps?

£30 repair..

[quote="Pete"]
The roads are awful around here and he said he has known of it happening with adverse cambers and road conditions.  I hope it is solved now but I am going to be wary for a while.
[/quote]

Pete - this is an X5... designed to go off road!! A few potholes or adverse camber isn't going to pop a drive shaft out!

Have it looked at by someone else, before it pops out on you again. Something is allowing the play along its length for it to come out of its seat.


Turks

Ok, will do.

There was a lot of work to it regarding bushes and arms last year (before I bought it) and it's only done a couple of thousand miles since. I've also recently had the inner and outer steering rack ends replaced - would having any of these things done displaced it?  Since it has been repaired, it seems more 'solid' if you know what I mean - but that might just be because I was driving an old mx5 whilst it was out of action.

was it a front shaft ???
last year when my cv joint exploded i replaced it in a hurry and the shaft wasnt clipped into the joint properly
turned a corner and it popped out of first the joint and then the box (lost drive and when i realised what had happened i felt very stupid)

[quote="ianst0028"]
was it a front shaft ???
last year when my cv joint exploded i replaced it in a hurry and the shaft wasnt clipped into the joint properly
turned a corner and it popped out of first the joint and then the box (lost drive and when i realised what had happened i felt very stupid)
[/quote]

I'm not sure to be honest, it's all a foreign language to me.  I know he wouldn't just do a quick fix if it wasn't safe and he specialises with Range Rovers and Land Rovers etc. So he's more than qualified I suppose and his  'popping it back in' might have had a bit more effort to it than it sounds.  He said it seated back in solidly and didn't mention any wear or play (which would be obvious, I suppose).  Some other garage could and would charge hundreds for the same job, so the fact it was a cheap repair means little other than he's an honest guy.

Regardless, with not having it long, other than the receipts , it's impossible to know how and why this may have happened and build up a true picture.  To help anyone else in the future, this is what happened:

When I lost drive, it wasn't under stress and I'd slowed down to do a turn in the road (facing up a slight hill). No bad noises, just wouldn't go in reverse, or then forwards...then it did it very slowly. Half a minute before the failure, it felt as though I was driving on a slightly rough road - enough to think that something wasn't quite right and it seemed more prominent on the near side. After the failure and having struggled to turn it around, I slowly rolled it down the hill, I put it in drive and the accelerator acted as a hard brake

Hi,

I am not disputing the " popping out" of the drive shaft. After all I am not a mechanic.

That said I have a little experience and unless there is a catastrophic failure of the drive shaft so that it actually splits, it should be physically impossible for a drive shaft to just " pop out "

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/showpar ... Id=31_0823

There has to be a different explanation . I would be interested in knowing, if nothing else to learn.

That said the best  news is your car is fixed.....!