What is the point! Why not use a stardust rear dif? Why; honestly! Who designed this! It is overly complicated and doesn't really accomplish anything.

It's.like the.AWD was an afterthought.

I can imagine the designers...

"what about the suspension?"

"the what now?"

"the suspension sir... We have a beam setup in the rear. How do we make it AWD and not redesign a whole new rear end?"

"uuuuuuuhhhhhh...... Ummmmm... Weld the diff to the floor and put in CV shafts! It's foolproof!"

BAM, AWD FOOKERS

well you answered it already, Its a 2003 Chrysler Town and Country. course it'll look screwy

You're expecting Chrysler to NOT be stupid?

Hmmm.... The only logical thing behind this is strength, this can support alot of weight, verses of it had a-arms or multi-link, so that's probably why, as well as cheaper.

The reason why it is like that was because the minivan is normaly FWD, they added a AWD model after the thought, so they set it up with portal gears i presume to allow it to be added in without requiring a redesign of the chassis. it has the CV joints due to the diff being mounted to the underbody and not in the axle itself. its still solid but the axle is bolted firmly to the van and not the axle.