PTU kaput
In March I was leaving work for a meet up with friends from Colorado in North Central Texas. About 2 miles from work the car indicated “AWD off” then the indicator went off, I drove another five miles and the indicator came on again, there was a slight smell of gear lube, I pulled over and looked for fluid leaks under the car and did not see any. I started the car and there was no AWD off indicator so I continued driving trying to make up my mind to go to the dealer twenty miles in the opposite direction from where I was going or continue the trip, I decided to continue the trip unless the ADW off light came on or there were other indications of trouble. Three hours later I arrived at my destination with no issues other than an occasional whiff of gear lube smell without any evidence of leaks.
When I got back to town I took the car to the dealer to have them look it over, they found no issues, I asked them to be sure as I was making a 20 round trip to Arizona in two weeks and did not want to find the issue in failure mode. I made it to Arizona without any problems. We took the car on some gravel and somewhat rock roads and it felt a little hitchy, like the traction control was working from one wheel to another without any logical coordination, this was in normal operating mode, I tried the other modes, it did not make a difference. Once again there was a slight smell of gear lube without any evidence of leaks. Hitting the highway again there were no issues, enjoyed the visit and headed home.
A few weeks later we were backing up to the garage and there was a squeaky / grind type noise for about thirty feet. I called the dealer the next day, Monday, and made an appointment to have the car looked at on Wednesday. I drove to work Monday and Tuesday (about 60 miles total) without any issues, at this point I was concerned that the dealer would not be able to reproduce the noise. After work Tuesday I pulled the car slowly back and forth while turning the steering left to right about 75 feet in the driveway to see if I could reproduce the noise, after a couple of trips there was some clunking / scraping noise, kind of sounded like a rock got between the heat shield and the drivers front brake rotor. I asked the wife to come out to drive so that I could localize the noise, when showing her how I was doing this there was a low grade mechanical bang and a nasty drizzle of gear lube along the driveway. When I stopped a 8 inch puddle formed, yes it was gear lube and it had indications of metal in it, the interesting thing was that this was a warm day in Texas (hot for Colorado) and the gear lube an hour later was still standing about 3/8 of an inch thick! This was all without any further AWD off indicator or codes thrown
I called the dealer and scheduled a tow. They got the car on the lift and discovered the PTU had broken the case from the inside out at the very front of the case, catastrophic failure. They ordered in a new PTU and replaced it, this involved removal of the transmission, they had it from Wednesday through the next Monday. We have had the car back for a few weeks at this point and I have been keeping a critical ear to it, so far so good!
Having an extended warranty the dealer set me up with a rental at no additional charge while the car was in the shop, I was very pleased with the way they handled the repair from start to finish.
I drive this car in a spirited but non-abusive way (I don’t spare the whip), I wonder that I have not read about any PTU failures, particularly with tuned Sports that launch in sand mode!
We purchased this car last June and currently have about 23,000 miles on it. We have family in Colorado and Nevada and wanted a reliable AWD vehicle to travel with, with the exception of this PTU (and a small trim) issue it has performed flawless. The stock tires have been acceptable in snow and ice conditions, that said we did spend most of our winter lives driving on snow and ice in Wyoming, Colorado and Wisconsin.
Long post but I did not want to generate too much back and forth interviewing on the issue.
