Proving a defect when the water is found inside the gear box would be quite a uphill battle. You may want to find out how the water got inside the gear box in the first place. That could be a defect as well (more ammunition for you to win the battle). What do you mean by "internal mountings" and what caused that to crack? Check the color of the shaft where two small bevel gears are rotating around and the color of the mating surface of the geat teeth for any sign of overheating or lack of lubrication.

 

If an independent shop is working on your quad. Kawi may use that as an excuse to not cover it under warranty. I assume by independent you mean not a authorized Kawasaki dealer. Most of the time warranty work needs to be done by an authorized dealer or service technician.

Although authorized or certified rarely means qualified when it comes to ATV's.... JMO.

 

The bike is not under warranty and the guy that is working on it has more experience than the local dealers combined. When I called yesterday, he said that the inside looked good as far as no rust or corrosion that was causing the binding. His preliminary looking showed cracks in some of the mounting for the clutch pack. He said that he had never seen any real problems with the differential unit like this.
I wish someone else had some problems like this so I would know what to expect.

 

If your quad is out of warranty, then it is sorry to say but you are pretty much out of luck having the Suzuke pay for the repair even if there is a defect. Instead, you should try how to minimize your repair bill.

 

The shop just called. One of the spider gears seized to the shaft like it was welded to it. It destroyed the inside basically. All 4 gears are going to have to be replaced along with the internal mounting. Around $500 for parts another $400 for labor. I talked with the Suzuki dealer and he said he would have to look at the piece and see if there was something he could do.
The shop that disassembled the differential said they didn't know why it seized. There was no lack of lubrication, no overheating, none of the signs that would signal why the seizure. The Suzuki dealer has not heard of the problem either so he is going to inquire at the factory.
Has anyone else had this problem?
Are there any other alternatives to this costly repair?
My only saving grace is the machine only has less than 300 miles.

 

Like I said before, the spider siezes on the shaft from excessive spinning with out the locker engaged. The tolerance between the shaft and the bore of the spider gear are a little tight. It is best to use your locker if you are spinning alot. If you are spinning alot (like in snow or something) it is best to not spin really fast. When you do this it starves the spider gear of propper lubrication. There is no oil passage to allow the oil to lubricate the spider gear. It helps to use a good quality motor oil maybe even a little lighter weight in the front diff. Especialy in the colder months since there is no heat source to help thin the oil for proper flow.

To give an example of what I am talking about here. Think of a nylock nut threaded onto a LONG bolt. If you turn it with a ratchet (slow) it comes off no problem. But take the same nut and remove it with an air wrench. It will heat up and melt the nylon insert in the nut and possibly gum up the threads making it really hard to remove. This is what is happening with the spider gears. If you spin slow or at an average speed there is usually no problems. But if you are spinning ang give it alot of gas "To clean the tires" for example. The spider gear turns faster on the shaft and starts to lose the thin film of oil which leads to metal to metal contact, leading to a siezed spider gear. My guess is oil can still get into the tiny gap between the shaft and the spider gear until you turn them above a certain speed.

Simple solution: Use the locker of you are stuck and spinning.

 

If this is true, which is sounds logical, shouldn't more people be having this problem?

 

If you go to the highlifter forums, they have. It is more common among the "My atv is a mud-submarine" crowd. Normal trail riding w/ the occasinal hang up usually is'nt enough to make it happen. I have an 05' BF650 SRA. I have'nt had any problems, but I do use my locker in the few circumstances that I am stuck or spinning. I have read about alot of people blowing there front diffs or they describe a fully locked feeling even with the locker disengaged. But this is all from the siezed spider gear. When this gear siezes on the shaft, the diff can no longer differentiate like an open diff. The shaft has a dowell thru it which holds it in place consequently keeping it from spinning also. So when people keep riding with the diff locked up from the siezed spider on the shaft that cannot turn, a situation is eventually encountered where there is enough force to shear either the spider gear shaft or the dowell pin holding it in place. This results in shaft sliding to the outside of the carrier or the spiders becoming miss aligned. Then metal parts start to grind and breakas the quad is driven. And often the housing becomes busted.

People automatically blame the locker because it seemed like it was stuck in the locked position when the diff "bit the dust". When ironically, it is one of the things that would have prevented this from happening.

Sorry to go on and on, but I am a mechanical engineer by trade.

 

Sorry to hear the bad news. We just ride and things happen like this unfortunately. In reality there is no real control for us to prevent excessive spinning of the spider gears. The key here is the proper lubrication. Use Mobil 1 synthetic 5W-30 in your gear box next time. And do it yourself so that you know what and how much you put in. Just be careful not to strip the drain bolt allen head which is really too small for the torque amount that you need to apply.

The ultimate way to save $ is to do the repair by yourself which is not too bad. It was lucky that you were sensitive enough to realize there is NO DIFFERENTIATION of the front wheels and took an immediate action. It sounds like there is no broken gears inside. Some people keep riding like that until the seized parts break and pieces get jammed bewen gears. Then the whole gear box explodes. This didn't happen to you. Just order the seized parts with some gaskets that you need and rebuild them. You will learn a lot.

 

Thanks for the tips. I am going to take the differential to the selling dealer. They said they would give a call to Suzuki and see if there would be any help from them. I am not going to hold my breath, but at least they didn't say no right off the bat.