Trying to find out why i get really bad mpg, so I decided to jack the front and rear of my car to see how much drag there was, the fronts were ok, wasn't much drag at all

The rears are really hard to spin, with e-brake off and in neutral I felt a lot of drag on both sides. I dont know if this is normal because its my first RWD car but all my FWD cars i've owned spun 3 to 4 times easier by hand

Its kind of hard to tell in the video but im using 2 hands and a lot of force to spin the tires, probably 75% of my power

20130303_130041 - YouTube

 

I just jacked it up again and confirmed that its not brake drag

so its either normal, or maybe im low on diff or tranny fluid? or maybe because its cold outside its hard to spin untill fluids warm up? because the more i spun it by hand the easier it seemed to be getting. I'm going to get them topped off when i get the chance

 

You're not in gear, right?

For one thing, you're turning one wheel but the other is not moving, so you're working against the LSD. I'm not sure how it would behave if the power was coming from the wheel, not the driveshaft, but it's not going to free wheel like that.

 

I'm in neutral, when I put it in 1st gear I have to use all of my strength to move the wheel, and when doing so the other wheel spins the opposite way.

I know its not supposed to free spin because of the axle, diff, drive shaft and tranny gears but I didn't think it would be as hard as it is

 

Mine is rather new (20.000 mls) and has the same.......I did not consider it as a problem.......imo it could be the LSD etc.