I was driving my '98 T/A last night and as I came to a stop the rear wheels locked up. I have an automatic tranny, and it felt like a stall in a manual, so I turned off the car, and restarted. The car would not engage any drive gears, but would go in reverse. I put the car in neutral to try to push it out of the street and it wouldn't roll because the wheels were locked. After going in reverse to a safe place, the car would go in drive again, but it felt like it was lurching. Also, I could hear an intermittent rubbing sound in reverse and drive. I had it towed to a mechanic. There were no prior symptoms.

Any idea what this could be???

 

Differential is shot...

 

A broken tooth on your ring or pinion probably got caught up in the gears, not letting it turn.

 

when u find out what happened, let us know, its puzzling to me

 

I broke 2 1/2 teeth off of my pinion going down the autobahn at 110-120 mph. (stationed in Germany at the time) The engine just about died for a second and the check engine light came on (misfire code). Thank god the rear didn't lock up as I would have been cleaned up off the road with a sponge. Car made very little noise and I "limped" it back home to be safe. At this point I didn't know what happened. As I was backing up in my driveway, the car would "jump/pop". I pulled the diff cover and only found one tooth. The rest turned to powder. That broken tooth is on my desk as a reminder that my guardian angle was working overtime that day...

 

The mechanic is taking the differential cover off today to take a look at it, the warranty company is having him take a sample of the diff fluid as well. Car has 84,000 miles on it and has not done any towing, so the mechanic said it is really unusual to see a rear end break like this on a GM. He said GM makes some of the best in the world... I'll let you know what he finds out after tearing it down a bit.

PS SSZ28 you must have a guardian angel

 

"mechanic said it is really unusual to see a rear end break like this on a GM."
He forgot to mention "except for those found on F-Bodies."
He hasn't done much work on Camaro's, has he? You look at the diff the wrong way and it'll explode.

 

Well, the results are in...

The screw broke that holds the pin in place, the pin came out and got caught between two of the gears in the differential. Since I was only going 5 mph it ate up some teeth. If I had been going freeway speed my differential would have blown up.

The wedged pin was the reason the car would not roll in neutral...

Repair calls for rebuild differential...

Repair cost = 1732.09
Extended warranty is covering 1575.37