Well, my pinion bearing, not sure which one as i understand there are two, decided to commit a murder suicide and seize on the shaft providing the need for a whole new rear case essentially. The differential itself is fine, which I will keep in the event of any further killings and I managed to source a low mileage (24,000) used E55 differential (the whole enchilada), so that saved me some coin over a refurbished unit at least.

Anyone else ever have this issue? I for one have never heard of an E55 pinion bearing issue like this before, but I guess I can be the first.

 

How many miles on your car?

 

The E55 has about 113k on it. Daily driven.

 

Well I for one can't say I've heard of any failing. My car has that amount of miles on the diff and when I upgraded the diff to a Quaife LSD the bearings showed little signs of wear. I replaced them anyway.

 

This makes me want to crack open my differential and take a peek inside.

I have 100k miles on the differential, but the fluid was changed every 50k miles. (preventative maintainence.)

 

Heads up on your 2003 brotha. They changed diffs half way through the model year. Some 03's have slip in half shafts connecting to either side while some 03's have bolt in half shafts.

Worst case scenario you might need new half shafts to match it if you have the older diff.

 

Are you interested in selling your busted diff to recoupe some of your loss? I need a cheap, broken one for a project I am working on.

 

Thanks jackpro, when I was doing some research prior to the purchase I came across this issue and I should be in the clear but if you see a WTB thread in the future, you'll know why.

Yeah, I will send you a pm hopefully next week once the new diff comes in and I get everything switched out.

 

Whats the cost of new differential ?

 

Brand new with no core exchange I'm not sure, but with a core exchange direct from MB I was quoted around $2200. This is for a completely refurbished rear differential assembly with the housing.

 

You are in Orange county, where do you take your car for repairs ?

 

I take it to Coastline Imports in Santa Ana, Exclusive Auto in Mission Viejo, or Carlsbad Exclusive Auto in Carlsbad. I've had positive experiences at all of them.

 

Well, tuns out I need to purchase the slip in half shafts as I have the bolt in ones...nice little mis-communication but at this point I'm over it. That said, I have access to a set of slip in axles, but my parts guy also mentioned I might be able to use my existing bolt-in axles. It was hard visualizing what he was explaining over the phone, but from what I understood, the bolt in axles are essentially two pieces. One piece is the actual axle as most people see it, the actual rod that connects to the wheel assy, and the other is a smaller piece that fits inside the differential that is then bolted to the axle rod, hence the bolt in design. Apparently, the new slip in axles alleviate the second piece and with some reusing of parts off of the bolt in axles, can be used in place of them.

I'm going to go ahead and get the new slip in axles as well and use those, but I'm going to have my mechanic see about getting the bolt-in axles to work with the slip-in differential. That way hopefully in the future if somebody finds themselves in a similar situation they will have the answers instead of searching around like I have been doing.

 

Ben, sounds like you have the M210 differential and you are replacing it with a M215 (stronger '04 and up model). Before you start pulling anything apart, you should do some research to make sure the spline count is the same as well as the impulse ring and any other pitfalls.
If you are staying stock, you might be better off locating the correct diff.

 

Agreed 100%. I have the new 1-piece axles to go with the new diff so no issues there. I'm just going to see about using the old bolt-in axles as a little side project for the E55 community. If they work, great, if not, no biggy but at least I will have a definite answer one way or the other.

 

Cool. Good luck with your project.

 

Thanks, hopefully it works. The two different differentials use the same mounting locations as well apparently but can anyone confirm?