My wife got a flat rear tyre last week. The road-side service guy put the space-saver tyre onto the rear :-( instead of the front, as per the manual. Tyres are original s-02's on standard 16" rims - 2000 year model.

The car was then driven for approx 15km's (10miles) at speeds up to 80km/h (50mph). Can anybody advise me if the diff would have been damaged and/or how to check/test the LSD function?

 

10 miles is really not a big deal, however i would be on the lookout for weird growling/whirring noises from the differential.


find an empty parking lot and start driving in a figure 8 format. your differential should be fine if you do not hear any obvious noises.

you can also jack up the rear and turn one wheel. it is normal if the other wheel turns in the same direction.

 

^ good advice...

 

[QUOTE=RazorV3,Oct 26 2004, 11:59 PM] you can also jack up the rear and turn one wheel.

 

lets say something did happen to the diff... can you have i t fixed by the company that installed the tires incorrectly? it would make sense that you could...

 

So what should happen when you have your car jacked up and you rotate a single tire?

What would you recommend to check the health of the S2000s LSD?

 

If the transmission is in gear, the free tire shouldn't rotate. But this will happen with any car and has nothing to do with the lsd. With the trans in neutral, the tire will spin.

*edit* This applies with one tire off the ground, which what I thought I read. :/

Check for odd noises and for any metal in the diff fluid. Not much else you can do to check the lsd out for this car.

 

With both drive wheels off the ground, the other wheel should turn in the opposite direction.

You can check the health of the diff if you live in place with a very slippery surface like ice and snow. If you start off with one tire on the slippery stuff and the other tire on the dry, the car should still take off very efficiently. If it only spins one tire and you go nowhere, the diff is probably damaged. You could also do a fluid analysis to see what that tells you.
If it's busted, it'll start to make odd noises soon enough.

 

That won't work. This diff requires both drive tires to have some traction in order to have the drive power split between the wheels. Any condition where one tire can spin free while the other has traction, the car will act like it has an open diff.

 

Odd, I do this every winter just for kicks and to test out how well it works. One side on ice, the other on dry. The car just takes off like both tires on dry. Please don't tell my car it's not supposed to do this.