paulifa1 Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 Morning all, I thought I'd write and tell you all about my complete success over the weekend with resolving my transmission problems should give all of you worrying about shelling out £3,000 or more for a recon. trans. some hope! I've also got some money saving tips for you if you DIY like me! OK, first to recap, I've just bought my car, a 1997 4.2Q Sport. When I bought it, I had an extensive test drive and did a VAG-COM diagnostic and the car seemed faultless, so I bought it and drove home, about a 250 mile trip!! After a faultless trip until I got near to home, as I got to within a few miles from my house, I noticed a slight gear whining noise was apparant, also the car actually dropped out of gear at low speed a couple of times and as if this wasn't bad enough, on parking on my drive and switching off the aircon and anything making a noise, I could now hear a noise like a bearing starting to fail (rumble type thing) I then discover that when engaging reverse, with my foot on the brake still holding the car, this rumble becomes really loud!! Worse still on stopping the engine and re-starting, the car squeels like a pig for about 15 seconds, a really hideous noise. And now as you're thinking it couldn't get any worse, well... on getting out of the car, I'm struck with the intense smell of burning gear oil and smoke wafting about!! Well by now I'm thinking of going to get drunk and that I've been suckered, despite the car having a full Audi service history and seeming faultless on pick up!! Anyway, next day I decide to investigate, as suspected the output shaft seal has failed at the rear throwing oil all over the cat causing the smell/smoke and probably the whine due to low oil level as a result, so I order one from my local stealer along with the bits needed to service the transmission, although, I feel I'm probably flogging a dead horse, as I really do think at this stage it must be shot! Anyway this weekend comes around, and I take the car over to my dads house about 4 miles away, driving very carefully and get it up on his car lift. Change the rear seal and top up the final drive oil level. Now on to the transmission... OK, my logic on this one, changing the oil once (leaving about half still in the box) gets approx 50% clean oil in there, so twice means 75% clean and three times 87.5% clean. This may be flawed, but works for me! So first, I drop the oil, absolutely hideous condition!, about 4 litres comes out, I re-fill to the correct level and road test about 1 mile, all noises are slightly less, but still there, the good news is, the gear whine has gone and no smoke/burning smell, so new seal is OK! I know, this may be considered foolish, changing the oil without the filter, but I wanted to clean up the oil a bit before subjecting the new filter to what dirty oil was left in the box if you see my logic. So now the real fun starts, drain again, bit cleaner (but only slightly!)this time and off with the pan, this is very dirty at the bottom and magnets are well sludgy, but no metallic swarf thank god and no burning smell in the box. Next I take of the filter which is full of similar slimy black oil. After letting the whole thing drain for 2 hours and cleaning the pan and magnets until they look like new, I re-assemble and re-fill as per the Auidipages procedure, funnily enough, this takes 6 litres!! so it must have been well drained. So, the moment you are all waiting for, test drive! Well, I couldn't believe it, no sound at all on start up, on engaging gears, the box pulls well through all gears and changes and kickdown as smooth as silk, the box feels brand new! So next day, I drain the oil again, now looking pretty clean and refill again, this time only taking the expected 4 litres. So thats it, touch wood it's now going to be fine and I'll change the oil every 25K from now on to keep it that way. Now a money saving tip for you all... as you know Audi ATF is about £10 per litre, but if you look here www.lubricants.org/?path=item&id=378 you can buy Esso LT 71141 (this is Audi ATF, confirmed by ZF who make the transmissions) for £5.60 per litre including delivery to your door next day. This is for 20 litres, but I got through 14 doing my service, so it's not an excessive quantity! Anyway, I hope the above will give hope to you all if you think your transmission is on its way out!! It might just need a good service. PS, If any of you are letting a dealer do this work for you, insist they clean the pan and magnets as well as changing the filter and the oil twice! (Don't assume they will clean the pan and magnets if you don't ask! and remember to tell them to drive the car a few miles before dropping the oil and refilling the second time!!) Also be aware that most dealers almost certainly hardly ever do this job as it's not part of the service on most audi's, (changing the strainer certainly isn't specified on any at all!!) and when dealing with auto transmissions you have to have the utmost level of cleanliness, so choose your dealer wisely and grill the guy actually doing the job to ensure he's up to it, not just the pretty face on the service desk who doesn't know what a transmission is/does Reading posts on here, symptoms such as mine seem to be diagnosed by stealers as "new box needed", so it makes me wonder how many transmissions have been changed, when all they needed was a proper service, scary thought eh??!! Have fun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruiser647 Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 Well done Mr! Where did you get your A8 from? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulifa1 Posted November 28, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 Thanks Cruiser! I bought it off the dreaded ebay from a guy in south Wales!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soundwave Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 Fantastic job, well done that man. Anyone who can beat the stealers is a hero in my book! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Botang Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 One other tip to add, is if you have vag com or access to it you can perform an output test on the gearbox which will select each valve and combination of valves to their limits. Once you have refilled the transmisson with the first lot of clean oil it may be worth trying this to get as much of the dirty oil mixed so that you can drain it easily. Warning the first couple of gear changes after an ouput test may be lumpy but dont panic it will settle down again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Golfer Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 Paul37, great post M8 , Botang, good tip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robmorphet Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 well done Paul - and thanks for the tip on the oil and pressure pump. Lying on a wet gravel drive in the rain trying to pump one of those boat sump pumps is no fun!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willg60 Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 Fair play, sounds like you did a proper job on that. I had my ATF change done by my stealer and it didn't make any difference what-so-ever, in fact if anything it's got worse. I can't help thinking that they didn't even do it and I got totally ripped off. My box is really lumpy, shunts on the way up and thumps on the way down and I get this shudder like a misfire when on part throttle. The thing is, it has never made any funny noises at all, nothing, not even a tiny squeal or anything. The other symtoms are that it trys to change gear when its not required, when on part throttle is changes up and down a bout 5 or 6 times in very close succession. On one hand, I think a damn good clean out of the box, like you did would be a sound idea and I really want to do it myself so that I know it's been done properly. On the other, the symtoms seem beyond mechanics, in that the box seems to get confused about what gear to select, so I think there must be something electrical wrong? I was gonna go back to the stealers for more tests this week, but now I'm worried again that I'm gonna get properly ripped off, again. What do you make of that! ???? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Botang Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 [ QUOTE ] when on part throttle is changes up and down a bout 5 or 6 times in very close succession. [/ QUOTE ] That is a generally known as hunting, if you look on audiworld or audipages youll find a few threads describing that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulifa1 Posted November 28, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 Hmmm...not sure what to make of that one, my symtoms were typical of dirty oil and filter, but you may have an electrical issue, possibly ecu related? Problem is, as you already know, getting the dealer to help you usually costs a fortune and they are happy to take your money even if they acheive nothing! I do think a proper oil and strainer change first would be worth trying though, but you do need to make sure it's done right as just changing the oil won't help, when I dropped the oil and refilled it didn't do much, but once the filter was done, wow, I really wouldn't have beleived it could change so much! Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willg60 Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 Yep, thats why I don't think they changed the filter, I did ask for the old one and was told it was in the boot, but when i walked out to the car it wasn't, and I couldn't be bothered to walk back in to the showroom ... I soooooo wish I had now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willg60 Posted December 1, 2005 Report Share Posted December 1, 2005 Paul Where did you get the parts for the ATF change, I'm thinking about doing mine .... Stealer? How much? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulifa1 Posted December 3, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 3, 2005 Stealer for all parts except oil, link for the oil is in the write up above, the total dealer cost was about £60 I think. Oil was £112 delivered, but that was 20 litres!! (I got through 14 anyway!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drh91 Posted December 4, 2005 Report Share Posted December 4, 2005 I had problems with the gearbox playing arround.Also had water dumped over my feet when cornering.Fault was blocked drain pipe fron the a/c causing the cpu to be sitting in water.Once cleared the gearbox gradually improve and is now O.K. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willg60 Posted December 5, 2005 Report Share Posted December 5, 2005 Thats interesting .... I thought I could hear some sloshing noises recently and I know for fact that my scuttle is full of water. The procedure is on Audi pages, I think I might take a look. when you say your CPU was sat in water.. where is that? The TCU and ECU on mine are in a plastic box in the scuttle .... CPU ????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
99A8 Posted December 8, 2005 Report Share Posted December 8, 2005 Mine started out "hunting" at 110K miles, and that was 15K miles after new fluid and filter. Also thumped after lifting off throttle when tach dropped to 1500. It felt like a downshift and then tached up to 1800 or so. Well, ZF shop said it was a mechanical failure in the torque converter, and had to be replaced. I lived with it for 3-4 months and used Tiptronic to avoid hunting and thumping. Finally got the local mechanic to work with me to fix it. I had the tranny inspected, seal and filters replaced, new fluid again, new converter, all labor, etc. 5 days in shop, $2,300. Smooth as before now. Was told there were "chunks" of converter inside tranny. Could have been worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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