In order to improve the production performance of an automotive differential housing and reduce the processing procedures and material waste, a multi-station continuous forming scheme for upsetting, pre-forging, final forging and punching was designed, and the simulation experiments were conducted by Deform-3D software. First, the plastic flow behavior of production material of 40Cr alloy steel at high temperature was studied, and the constitutive equation for simulation was obtained to ensure the reliability of the test results. Then, the influences of different pre-forging schemes on the forming results were studied, the feasibility of each scheme was evaluated, and the important indicators such as metal flow law, load change law and forging temperature distribution law during the forming process were compared and analyzed. Meanwhile, the wear performance of forging die steel SKD61 under high temperature condition was studied, and the Archard model was modified to accurately predict the wear law of forging die for each scheme. Finally, according to the optimal results, the multi-station forging test of differential housing was conducted, and the test process was smooth. The results show that the quality of the produced differential housing is good, and there are no defects on the surface and inside, which is completely consistent with the simulation results and can replace the current outdated production process.