DanielC63

I have a ’09 C63 with LSD. Today I was on a drive, ESP off and manual shifting. Did a pull and half true first gear I heard a bang! and lost the power to the wheels. Engine fine, could shift from D to R, N and put first gear in from C. But get no power to the wheels. When in D the car can roll backwards. No fault lights on dash. When in D I hear a ’metallic’ rough sound from the rear end.

May it be a blown diff? Driveshaft? Rear axle?

BLKROKT

Broken axle. Likely drivers side right at the carrier.

DanielC63

Will a snapped axle take power from both wheels?

AMGSIXTHREE

Yep

Get under there and look. It should be easy to see if it's broken.

roadtalontsi

I snapped a driveshaft once at around 20mph. Pretty unusual.

skullbox15

What causes a driveshaft to snap?

deadlyvt

too much force
haha can be out of balance or damaged from rocks and stuff hitting it. Usually it's sending a lot of power and having really sticky tires breaks your weakest part

sickSVT

Wheel hop.

swedepat

Rust can also make a axle weaker.

roadtalontsi

In my case it was running toyo R888r's driving kind of stupid. It was about 20* F outside, I hammered on it knowing the tires would easily spin, then they got warm and dead hooked at around 20mph while the tires were moving about 40mph. Snap goes the drive shaft. It broke in the middle section where the splines slide in and out. Solid chunk of metal snapped. Really impressive. I've never seen an amg or any other merc do it. I kept it as a trophy.