3 replies to this topic

[Donald Rice]

Story starts (maybe) a few months ago (about 4000 miles ago) when I replaced the left front hub bearing after listening to it get progressively noisier for 4 -6 weeks. Everything went OK and all was quiet after the repair.

Now comes the exciting part...we took a 500 mile trip to souther California at freeway speeds of 75 - 85 mph, no problems. Reached Los Angeles, drove around for a few days, drove to Newport Beach, drove around for a few days, etc. The morning we are packed to go home, I am just going to call valet parking to have the car brought up when the phone rings. It is the valet manager calling to tell me that one of the hotel engineers was walking through the parking garage when he heard a sound like a pistol shot and saw the axle nut of my parked S70 go flying across the parking garage. I wanted to see this for myself and went and looked (he had retrieved the broken axle end with nut in place)...sure enough it was broken off clean. The break occurred in the thick, splined part of the axle and the fracture was entirely new (no evidence of a previous partial crack). Needless to say, we were very happy this happened (1) while the car was standing still and (2) in front of a guy smart enough to figure out what had happened and (3) conscientious enough to report it. So, we got the axle replaced and headed home.

The question is: Has anyone else experience an axle failure similar to this? One theory was that the bad bearing (see above) had heated the axle and damaged it. Another theory was that the axle nut had been overtightened (during the hub bearing replacement) and over tensioned the axle.

[Bay13]

I'd go with the axle nut was over tightened theory.

[shurgen]

Wow, I'd never think that axle rod could break, rather the thread stripped on the nut. You must have used a pretty big pry bar to tighten that thing. Unbelievable....

[MikeH]

I've had it happen on my Accord. It does make a hell of a bang when it snapped.
I was lucky it happened 1 block from home. Pushed it home and bought a new axel. Parts guys dont give Core charge return tho, since thats the only part they want back for the rebuild.