Speaking to a local Land Rover specialist who offers Alive remaps. I was chewing the fat over all the different things discussed in this thread and they mentioned that a lot of the rest diff issues come from mismatched tyres or poor alignment resulting in uneven forces on the diff from either side. Thoughts?

I would be interested to hear Austen's view on this. For me it sounds unlikely; after all, diff failures on other cars are quite rare and dealing with uneven wheel speeds, tyres or cornering forces is basically why you have a diff in the first place. My money is on the theory that Ford designers/engineers rarely deal with rear wheel drive systems these days and to keep the costs down underestimated the requirement.

Having said that, excluding my current car we have had 5 FL2s in the family and only one has had a diff problem. (so 20% failure rate ?) 3 x FL1 2 manual + 1 auto
5 x FL2 4 manual + 1 auto
Now Discovery Sport P250 MHEV SE

But how many people not on or aware of this forum, have got a rear diff that has or is failing and are completely unaware.?

I do kind of agree with Dorset though that most mainstream manufacturers (not including the usual German marques) moved away from rear wheel drive and so negated the use of a rear diff, and so engineering knowledge faded over time.

Bobfog wrote:

Speaking to a local Land Rover specialist who offers Alive remaps. I was chewing the fat over all the different things discussed in this thread and they mentioned that a lot of the rest diff issues come from mismatched tyres or poor alignment resulting in uneven forces on the diff from either side. Thoughts?