2003 A4 1.9TDi CVT gearbox; flashing lights and gear-change problems

[JHarries]

Hi fellas,

Once again, I turn to the only place I know where I'm more likely to get helped than shafted when it comes to car advice!

I know other people have posted about this problem on the Intarwebz; the PRNDS lights on my Audi have been flashing from time to time - and with increasing frequency - for some little while now. Just recently, the car occasionally refuses to go into reverse... I'll stop, switch to reverse, the R gear will fail to highlight on the DIS, there'll be nothing but revs when my foot goes on the throttle and then a few seconds later the whole gearbox display flashes. The car behaves more-or-less normally in this mode, except that it won't go into Sport.

I'm based in Gloucestershire... can anybody recommend anyone reasonably local who might be able to sort this out for me, or tell me what the hell the problem actually is? My local garage - good blokes, very reliable - have had a peek with their diagnostic computer but it won't talk to whatever module is relevant to this problem. They freely admit they don't get enough Audi action to make it worth their while investing in the kit/training needed for more specialist jobs.

Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated - ta!

Jarrad

[JHarries]

Followup: I've spoken to inde-tech and they're 99% sure it's the ECU. Changing that plus a gearbox oil-change (which they heartily recommend) will come to just under a grand. However, they need me to get the fault-codes read before they can be certain... does anyone know if Audi will charge me for that? Or is there anyone here who knows someone local I can go to in Gloucestershire?

Cheers,

Jarrad

[cruiser647]

Audi will charge you for it, OR you can go to a local TSN Meeting and ask some-one to bring VAG-Com with them.

Have a look in the Meets & Trackdays section.

[BW2309]

Hi there. From my experiance it does sound like you could have a failed MultiTronic ECU. There are a few issue with clutch packs on early Multi's but thet rarely cause the display to flash. The fault you have would seem as though either the gear selection position sensor is up the swanny (hence it's unwillingness to select reverse) or indeed the ECU is past it. Usually if the ECU has failed it will be very difficult to gain access to it via diagnostic equipment. This communication error is what causes the fault display (flashing PRNDS). A good way to check is to view the faults stored in both the engine ECU and the instrument cluster. If the ECU is failing there will almost certainly be stored faults in both suggestion loss of comminication with the gearbox ECU. I have had to replace several Multitronic ECU's with the same intermittant fault.

A fluid flush is a must as a precaution anyway! A clogged oil system will most certainly cause severe damage and result in a very costly repair - usually just as much as a new unit! This change is due every 40,000miles and is often missed due to it's cost at service time.

[JHarries]

Heads-up for everyone. It was a new transmission ECU - nobody's surprised there then - but I really wanted to let you know about the place that sorted it. Auto Trans in Gloucester; they did a fantastic job, only charged me £150 in labour (including the transmission oil flush) and the car has been running as sweet as a nut for weeks now. The folks there are polite, efficient and really know their stuff; and they work on transmissions on all makes and models. The total for the job was about the same as Inde-Tech quoted me, the vast majority of the sum being the ECU itself.

I thought there might be a lot of people on the forum for whom Gloucester was significantly closer than Milton Keynes, and it's always worth bigging up people who've given you cracking service! If you find yourself with any auto-box-related problems, use these guys: you won't regret it.