A customer brought in their Honda CR-V with a complaint of some noise from the rear. The technician put the car up on a lift and found that a plastic bag had gotten wrapped around one of the rear axles. Normally, we would simply remove the plastic and send the customer on their way, but this time was a little different.

Somehow, while getting wrapped up around the axle, the plastic managed to get into the axle seal on the rear differential. I’m not sure how simply spinning would lead to getting sucked in like that, but the seal was leaking as a result and needed replacing.

When the tech lower the differential and pulled out the axle to replace the seal, we could see that the plastic was fully inside the differential. When the fluid was drained it contained pieces of plastic, so it had clearly made it’s way through the gears. Despite the possibilities of internal damage, the customer opted not to replace the differential at this time.

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-Dan