Hi. This morning I took my 2005 XC70 to a mechanic. We jacked up the front of the car, put it into Drive and found that only the front wheels were driving. He popped underneath the car and said the long drive shaft (from front of the car to the diff at the back) wasn't even turning.

At that point he said I'd need to take it to a specialist. Has anybody had this problem before? I would like to know if this is common or not. I have read loads of posts about rear angle gears breaking etc but nothing like this. If somebody wanted to disable the rear wheel drive, I'm sure they would have done it from the rear or by completely removing the driveshaft.

Would there be anything electronic within the (front/main) gearbox itself which controls engaging/disengaging of the rear wheel drive completely?

 

I think you'll find that is a common problem and totally mechanical.

 

Yeah, I was quite surprised that the driveshaft itself wasn't going around. If its mechanical, that's probably a good thing - it should come back fixed. I've been in touch with another place that reckons this has been quite common on some of the XC90's he's worked on. He mentioned changing a "front casing" on the gearbox. I only hope that replacement parts are better than the originals. They're all fully booked until after Xmas so I may have to wait a while. Its not making any noises so I'll assume its OK to use in front 2WD for now. It shouldn't snow here until another 6 months.

 

The beloved mechanic try to make some money on you. Why would he do that? If the rear wheels on the ground are turned, your car would jump off the jack stands, when you jack up the front end and put in gear, the no loaded wheels always turn, until you step on gas (of course you don't want to do this), ask your mechanic jack up both front and rear put the car on jack stands, then put in gear to see if all wheel are turn or only the front or rear turn. I never let him touch my car.