Patent ID: 6951522

Claim:
A differential apparatus comprising: a differential case rotatably mounted within a housing; a differential gear mechanism rotatably mounted in said differential case, said differential gear mechanism having a driving member rotatably driven by driving force from an engine, said differential gear mechanism further having a pair of output shafts extending from said differential case in opposite directions for distributing the driving force from said engine to wheels; a pair of opposite planetary gear sets operatively connected to said differential case independent from said output shafts and disposed outside said differential case, each of said planetary gear sets is disposed about one of said output shafts and includes a planetary ring gear, a sun gear and a planetary carrier rotatably supporting a plurality of planet gears operatively coupling said planetary ring gear with said sun gear; and a brake mechanism for selectively braking said planetary ring gear of at least one of said planetary gear sets relative to said housing.