Was sitting in a parking lot in my 2005 X with 30,684 miles on it and when I pressed the gas I got a loud thump in the rear of the car and no gears. Engine just revved. When I put it into park I got a grinding noise. Same thing happened exactly one year ago to date and at that time dealer told me the rear axle popped out of the housing and he repaired it for free. I thought that was an odd thing to happen but he said it happened some times and since there was no charge to me I went on about my merry way. So I immediately thought it was the same problem.

Had it towed in and on Tuesday the dealer called and told me that bearings were burned up in the transfer case and he had been in touch with my aftermarket warranty and they were sending out an inspector to approve the repair. So on Thursday he called back and said the repair was approved, minus my $200 deductible, but that the aftermarket warranty company would not pay for a new transfer case, they would only provide a used one they had sourced from a supplier. He and I both agreed that was not a good idea, plus he said he would not offer any warranty on the part. To top it off they wanted him to order the part and pay for it, as opposed to them providing him the part. He said he would not do that. He quoted me $1160 over what the warranty would cover (about $2300 I think it was) for a new Jag OEM part. He said they did not sell used parts and as far as he knew it was impossibe to rebuild a transfer case, that Jag did not offer a rebuilt one as a replacement.

After some back and forth he agreed to sell me a new one for his cost and to lower his $134 per hour labor rate to the warranty service limit of $114. So my total out of pocket, including the deductible, is about $650. I thought that was resonable for a new OEM Jag transfer case that was dealer installed and warrantied. I am still surprised that this happened at only 30k and I do not drive the car hard at all. He said the problem last year was unrelated to this one but I am not convinced. What do you guys think?

 

tarheel, not to question the dealership, but from my understanding of the transfer case, even if you remove the rear driveshaft, the car will still move due to having the front wheels with power. So, how a year ago you could have what you said happen occur, I find a little interesting.

As for getting the transfer case rebuilt, there are shops that will rebuild them. Granted, they are few and far between as most people have problems sourcing the new bearings. But, a few members have found the bearings and even posted the part numbers here on the forums. I am sure that a quality tranny shop would be able to rebuild the transfer case if you told them what parts they needed. The actual case seems to be pretty straight forward, so, the rebuild would be fairly cheap.

As for what you are doing, that sounds like a hell of a deal. Sounds like a dealership you want to keep around as they are willing to work with the customer when things go south and not per what they probably tell other customers will happen.

Just to ask a question about how the car is driven, at what RPM does the car shift out of first gear normally. Just curious. It could be that you had a small leak in the transfer case and simply the bearings were running dry and they failed. With only 600ml of fluid in the transfer case, it don't take much of a leak to get the transfer case dry (as a lot of members found when checking their transfer case fluid levels and then changing fluid).

 

Thermo, thanks for the comments. Yeah, I thought I read about rebuilt transfer cases on here but I doubt the dealer ever deals with anyone but Jag for parts and with a transfer case, if I can get a brand new one from Jag for that price that sounded like a winner to me. Apparently a used one is cheaper than a rebuilt, since the warranty was going that route.

I had the 30k service done earlier this year, at the Jag dealer. It was at about 29k at the time but I wanted to get the oil changed so I went ahead and did that. Nothing was said about any leaks, either then or last October when I had the other issue. Nothing this time either. He just told me the bearings were burned out. I will question him more when I pick it up this week.

I don't remember exactly the shift points but that are not unusually high. I do not drive the car hard at all and it does not get a lot of highway miles on it, just a few weekend trips of 10 miles or so at highway to run errands. The car has always driven fine and acted normal, other than the one occurance last year.