Rear lower wishbone arm snapped, question about rear differential.

[erykkuld]

Long time no see, my car has been doing good for the past months, except for now, rear right lower wishbone arm snapped right off from the knuckle, while attempting to fuel up at a gas station. (Luckily it didn't happen on the highway.) Replacing the wishbone is easy enough, although the drive shaft popped out and took the gearbox flange with it , how do these gearbox flanges work exactly? Will I have to replace the rear diff too? Also unsure about the upper mounting point of the shock on that side too. Here are some pics and a video:

http://imgur.com/a/BzbVmfm

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cKsaIggJkGg

 

[STDOUBT]

That is so crazy!
Do you guys use salt on your roads in winter time?
There should be a seal inside the flange. As for damage to the rear diff, no idea. Once you get the axle free, you could peer inside and maybe see damage, or not hopefully.
Frankly, if the car were mine, I would be paranoid about the next "fall out" that could happen.
Get it on a lift and inspect carefully every seam, joint and weld. By "inspect" I mean not only look, but beat on things with a hammer, too!

 

[erykkuld]

That is so crazy!
Do you guys use salt on your roads in winter time?
There should be a seal inside the flange. As for damage to the rear diff, no idea. Once you get the axle free, you could peer inside and maybe see damage, or not hopefully.
Frankly, if the car were mine, I would be paranoid about the next "fall out" that could happen.
Get it on a lift and inspect carefully every seam, joint and weld. By "inspect" I mean not only look, but beat on things with a hammer, too!

Oh Norway salts the heck out of the roads, here in the southeast of Norway they do, not as much up north tho actually. I've managed to get my wreck 2 days ago on a trailer, have been busy with work the past few days now so haven't gotten the chance to really look at it, was a pain to get it on a trailer with a wheel like that, only stumble we had was getting it back off really. will update as fast as I get it pulled apart, have found some ETKA schematics, looks like the axles are simply c clipped in luckily but will update.

 

[Nuje]

Yeah - we never got 4motion Mk4 TDI Golfs here in North America (only ever showed up on the Mk4 R32), so the knowledge pool here will be a lot shallower than on most other topics.

 

[erykkuld]

Yeah - we never got 4motion Mk4 TDI Golfs here in North America (only ever showed up on the Mk4 R32), so the knowledge pool here will be a lot shallower than on most other topics.

maybe its for the better, wondering if i maybe should convert to 2wd if i can't fix it. Need to call VW tomorrow to find out which control arms are correct for my car, etka isn't really helping with what i am finding in terms of parts, all of the replacement parts i am finding are different lengths. Seems also like the upper and lower are the same on my car too.