Hey everyone. Hope you're all surviving and staying safe. Scary times.

I work within the veterinary care profession and so am still travelling to and from work each day. My FL2 was booked in to have a replacement diff from Bell fitted but the garage called yesterday to say they were having to close because of staffing issues, which is fair enough.

So my question is: is it safe to continue driving? It's a good old drone it's got going on and assume it's a bearing (it's a facelift 2010/11) so don't know if it's likely to go pop and break the whole car!

Cheers. Learned to drive in 2011.
Bought a Micra - great little car
"Upgraded" to Kia Sportage - hated it
Proper upgrade to FL2 TD4 GS 60 reg Facelift - tailgate paint issues, fuel gauge rewire, transfer box failure at 36k miles, clutch at 60k
Reconditioned diff at 70k ish
Sold at 84k and now on a DS. Terribly unreliable.
Sold DS for a 2021 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. Fingers crossed....
Sold Outlander for a 2014 SD4 SE Tech because I’m mental

Not diff, but front IRD unit - mine was failing and I must have driven 10,000 miles with it before finally biting the bullet and getting a replacement from Bell Engineering. It was making a hell of a racket by the time I changed it.
Sure you'll be fine.

join the rac with full recovery.

DON'T....join the RAC. Left me and my partner in a vulnerable and downright dangerous position , not just for us , but for other road users. They initially got to me within 1/2 hour as there was an RAC guy who lived in the village I was stranded in just starting his shift and was himself on his way to a call out.He took a look and called in stating I needed recovering. Then I was left at the side of the road for 9 hours after repeated promises they were just round the corner. No food, drink etc. Then they send a local recovery guy (not RAC) to recover me who hasn't got his jump pack with him ( Battery had died after 9 hours of having the hazard lights on) he was based 30 miles away and by the time he got to us his yard was closed so he couldn't return for his pack and then return to recover me. Luckily the local RAC guy turned up on his way home , jump started my Freelander and the other guy took it away to the RAC approved repairers .Too late to get us a courtesy car. The RAC guy couldn't apologise enough. He called his base and went mad on the phone , insisting the Freelander became a priority at the repairers. He took us back to where we were staying and told us how bad the RAC was getting and how he was on the verge of quitting. He told us to look at the on line reviews and sure enough they made grim reading with a rating of 1.5 out of 5.

Chuck

My diff was making a small amount of noise and I used a very strong magnet to collect the metal from the oil and the noise went away

Note in your case I suspect that the damage has gone too far to eliminate the noise

However if you place a strong magnet on the diff fill bolt (outside not inside) then the shaving will be attracted and retained by the bolt

The magnet needs to be very strong

I can crawl under my Freel2 and attach the magnet in about 2 minutes

By collecting the steel dust you will minimize the risk of damaging the diff gears

Take care

Paul

Thanks folks. Interesting idea about the magnet. Learned to drive in 2011.
Bought a Micra - great little car
"Upgraded" to Kia Sportage - hated it
Proper upgrade to FL2 TD4 GS 60 reg Facelift - tailgate paint issues, fuel gauge rewire, transfer box failure at 36k miles, clutch at 60k
Reconditioned diff at 70k ish
Sold at 84k and now on a DS. Terribly unreliable.
Sold DS for a 2021 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. Fingers crossed....
Sold Outlander for a 2014 SD4 SE Tech because I’m mental

I took mine to Austen at Bell Engineering today to have the PTU changed and the Haldex serviced. Austen took the car for a drive to confim the noise from the front and upon his return he said my PTU was fine but a wheel bearing had gone. He put the can on the ramps and found the driverside front bearing was at fault, lucky for me he had one in stock so set about fitting it. Bearing done and Haldex service my drive home was very quiet compared to my drive there.
Thank you Austen.

That'll have been a nice money saving surprise!

Mine has been checked and confirmed as diff so I won't have the same luck 😩 just waiting on my garage opening back up. Learned to drive in 2011.
Bought a Micra - great little car
"Upgraded" to Kia Sportage - hated it
Proper upgrade to FL2 TD4 GS 60 reg Facelift - tailgate paint issues, fuel gauge rewire, transfer box failure at 36k miles, clutch at 60k
Reconditioned diff at 70k ish
Sold at 84k and now on a DS. Terribly unreliable.
Sold DS for a 2021 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. Fingers crossed....
Sold Outlander for a 2014 SD4 SE Tech because I’m mental

norfie wrote:

I took mine to Austen at Bell Engineering today to have the PTU changed and the Haldex serviced. Austen took the car for a drive to confim the noise from the front and upon his return he said my PTU was fine but a wheel bearing had gone. He put the can on the ramps and found the driverside front bearing was at fault, lucky for me he had one in stock so set about fitting it. Bearing done and Haldex service my drive home was very quiet compared to my drive there.
Thank you Austen.