The other half mentioned that a loud noise was coming from the rear diff.

Sounded like a bag of spanners were in there.

Pulled it out today and the little planet gears that turn on a shaft thru the diff centre had some serious damage....

Turns out that the shaft had snapped in half and was hitting the input pinion as it all turned. The gear damage I am putting down to lumps of metal getting stuch in them.

My question is why/how did this happen, the car does very little off-road work.

Is there something I should check for to cause this failure, or is it like my old series motors... It just happens???

Cheers for your time...

Lee

They can and do wear out, especially if you neglect to change the oil regularly.

As said lack of oil changes can cause it, but also it could well be the factory fitted diff, so not bad for 15yrs. Pretty cheap to fix thou

yep cheapish under £100, diff, shaft and oil. its an easy fix, i did my diff the other week (again) changed it in a with a hang over at an off road event, lucky i took a diff with me

I have changed the oil 3 times in the 3-4 years I have owned it. The car only covers 5-6000 miles a year but is asked to work hard with upto 3.5t on the back.

As for fixing it the diff was £45 from Skan4x4 at Much Wenlock and another £4 for some sealant.

Main concern was if something else caused it to break???