2018 F150 mechanical breakdown expensive repair -- differential ?

Megucares

My 2018 f150 broke down on what was an easy flat ground 35 mph commute. It seemed as though the differential or something in that area of the driveline was failing before it busted completely and the RWD completely broke / decoupled. I had to push the vehicle down the road into a parking spot.

My questions are:

I thought this may have been vandalism such as rocks in the rear differential based on the sound and sudden breakdown. Is that possible?

A ford service place that my insurance towed the vehicle to wants $3500 to fully replace and rebuild the rear differential. They would not say it was vandalism. Is that even possible? How does that breakdown without abusing the vehicle?

thecardoc3

Megucares said:

It seemed as though the differential or something in that area of the driveline was failing before it busted completely and the RWD completely broke / decoupled.

Your answer is right in your description. Axles failures happen, sometimes with some advanced clues, sometimes seemingly out of no-where. It's common that the axle will start making noise before it fails completely but there could be a number of reasons that you didn't notice it, especially with a pick-up truck. It isn't plausible that someone could have vandalized it. While I have an idea of how someone could do something that would cause an axle to fail, it's just not reasonable to think that someone went through that much trouble.

Did you ever have the fluid level checked, or the fluid replaced in the differential? Just because it wasn't under a significant load at the time it completely failed, that isn't a reflection on what it has had to do over the life of the truck. How many miles are on your truck? Is it 4WD? If you never serviced the rear axle, it's likely you also haven't serviced the front axle nor the transfer case. You may want to have the fluid changed in those too if you haven't had it done.