Was the diff / Haldex issue resolved or improved onnlater models 2012 and on?
Also, if I aquire a low miler say 30k and service it will that prevent a diff change or was the pinion set too tight on all.
Said I'd never change my FL1 but no harm in knowing the facts in case a bargain appears......
In my opinion, the diff is a bad design.
It's very flat to take up minimal space, but this hampers the oil supply to the pinion tail bearing.
In answer to the question, no the later diff also suffers bearing failure.
It's potential down to several reasons.
It could well be overly tight from the factory, my replacement Evoque diff was. The pinion on that was so tight I could hardly move it by hand. I put a torque wrench on it to try to measure the pre-load, which was about 30Nm IIRC. It should be 1.1Nm or there abouts, so it was way too tight.
The long service intervals don't help, but because there's no need to drain the oils, there's no advanced warnings of impending issues.
The diff itself is no big deal. It takes about 2 hours to remove and refit, that's grovelling on the floor without a lift. On a lift it's much less work to do.
The damaged bearing can be replaced, I've done it and it wasn't that bad.
You might find a low mileage FL2 difficult to get, and when they do come up they are silly expensive.
You could look for one with engine trouble like I did. Mine was cosmetically perfect inside and out, with just the engine and rear diff that needed attention.
I'm happy with mine for the most part, but I've still got an occasional misfire which I believe to be an injector, and I'm loosing an amount of coolant, which I believe is down to the EGR cooler.
Mechanical stuff isn't too expensive to buy, but cosmetics and interior trim is silly money, so I'd definitely favour a mechanical issue over a cosmetically damaged example.
