[V6-12v] A6 transmission mystery

Thu Jan 8 15:32:14 PST 2009

My guess is that they might well go out and buy a Subaru, if they abandon
this car and opt for a new one. There is a very aggressive Subaru dealer
here, and I have seen other perfectly good Audi Avants end up being traded
for one of those things.

Hopefully, my mechanic will end up with this one for the cost of his time
invested already...five or six hours, perhaps.  IF that happens someone
might be able to get the deal of the century.

R

-----Original Message-----
From: leelee at jon-is.boldlygoingnowhere.org
[mailto:leelee at jon-is.boldlygoingnowhere.org] 
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 5:58 PM
To: rmwoodbury at roadrunner.com
Cc: jhhummel at bigpond.com; v6-12v at audifans.com
Subject: RE: [V6-12v] A6 transmission mystery

Ah, your in Maine, ie England. Yeah, apparantly cars corrod like nothing
up there due to all the salt used in winter on the roads, and being a
small land mass surounded by angry seas. Although it's a nice car, if they
don't want to spend $2000 on it now, then they may as well get rid of the
car. Old Audi's need the money spent on them when they need it, otherwise
they just become maintenance write offs. A car that old, if this isn't is,
there is a $2000 bill coming soon enough. With the attitude they have,
they should go buy a toyota, boring but cheap.

cheers

Jon

> Yes, it seems pretty definite that the main input shaft is corroded or
> somehow fouled inside the valve body.  The entire transmission linkage is
> disconnected and the shaft is REALLY stiff to move.  The question is has
> anyone had that happen before?
>
> The mechanic in question is arguably the ONLY Audi specialist of sorts. He
> is a BMW/Toyota Master tech, and is the only person who I would trust an
> Audi (or any other German auto) to here in Maine.  There is one Audi
> dealer
> that I have some regard for, 100 miles away. The nearest Audi dealer is a
> Ford dealer about 40 miles away, and there is something not very
> reassuring
> taking an Audi into a large service facility where there are forty
> nineteen
> Ford Focusses (Focussi?) waiting in line.
>
> This is not my car.  I am merely asking if anyone within earshot has had
> this kind of issue with one of these transmissions.  The owners of the car
> were given the car (I am told), and will NOT do a $2000
> transmission...which
> is a shame because the car is really worth keeping in service based on the
> overall condition at least as far as I could tell from my casual look as I
> walked out of the garage last week.
>
> Roger
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: v6-12v-bounces at audifans.com [mailto:v6-12v-bounces at audifans.com] On
> Behalf Of Jonathan
> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 3:36 PM
> To: v6-12v at audifans.com
> Subject: Re: [V6-12v] A6 transmission mystery
>
> Hi Roger,
>
> you seem pretty certain that it is a corroded shaft, has your mechanic
> actually seen the shaft to tell you that it is corroded, or am I
> missinterpreting that as "this is what we think"
> **********slight tangent**********
> I have a 96 FWD automatic that's done almost 260K, the only problem it has
> with the transmission is the F125 Multi-switch has a corroded connector,
> so
> unless the car lives near the ocean it's entire life or has been abused by
> a
>
> previous owner who didn't put the right oils in it when it needed it, I
> don't
> know why a shaft would corrod so badly. (Oh that switch, apparently tells
> the
> computer what gear the car is in, so the dodgy connector means that gear
> changes aren't as smooth, or sometimes it sh**s itself as it thinks it's
> lost
> the transmission - interestingly the windows trick of turn everything off,
> leave it for a minute and turn it all back on again works)
> *********************
> I also guess you haven't taken it to a Audi specialist? If you want to get
> the
> car working, I've often found from my own and other peoples experience,
> that
>
> even through Audi specialists are more expensive per item done, they often
> can find what needs to be done and do only that. My dad had that problem
> with
> his A4, he spend thousands trying to fix the "airbag light coming on" at
> local mechanics, to take it to Audcare, who replaced a dirty connector for
> free, which solved the problem.
>
>
> If you're mechanic ends up taking anything apart around there, you need to
> find out if there are any alloy parts before hand.
> - Someone else on this list might be able to help with that. -
> This is because threads in alloy parts are only designed to be assembled
> about
> 3 times before the thread rips out. Or assembled about once if done by a
> mechanic who knows nothing about alloy parts. (My boss used to be an
> engineering manager at a transmission manufacturing company. They mad
> transmissions for Massaraties among other things)
>
> Anyway, if there are alloy parts, make sure your mechanic has Heli coil or
> other high quality threading wire. Use google to understand what it is. I
> found this out the hard way when a bolt holding my brake caliper on came
> out
>
> and jammed between the rotor and the wheel. At least that was a bake
> failure
>
> which caused the car to stop :D
>
> Cheers
>
> Jon
>
>
>
>> Message: 4
>> Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 10:14:08 -0500
>> From: "Roger Woodbury" <rmwoodbury at roadrunner.com>
>> Subject: Re: [V6-12v] A6 transmission mystery
>> To: <davidtorrey2004 at yahoo.com>,	<v6-12v at audifans.com>
>> Cc: v8 at audifans.com, 200q20v at audifans.com
>> Message-ID: <81EFE2EEABE1448B860023708DA7146B at ROGER>
>> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"
>>
>> More information.  The gear selector has been completely disconnected.
> The
>> problem is the shift shaft itself is very very still down into the
>> transmission.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thus the question is has anyone experienced this problem before?  We are
>> hoping that there might be a "fix" short of a complete transmission tear
>> down or replacement.
>>
>>
>>
>> Roger
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: David Torrey [mailto:davidtorrey2004 at yahoo.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 8:35 AM
>> To: v6-12v at audifans.com; rmwoodbury at roadrunner.com
>> Cc: 200q20v at audifans.com
>> Subject: Re: [V6-12v] A6 transmission mystery
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> When you say the gear selector is hard between gears, do you mean
>> physically shifting the gear selector between D1,D2, D3 or the automatic
>> upshifts are hard between shift points?  Is the gear selector solenoid
>> valve engaging properly when you depress the brake pedal?  I have 177K
>> miles on my '93 100 CSQ Avant and I have never experienced this.  I did
>> change to fully synthetic transmission fluid at 35K miles for whatever
> that
>> is worth.
>>
>>
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>>
>> --- On Wed, 1/7/09, Roger Woodbury <rmwoodbury at roadrunner.com> wrote:
>>
>> From: Roger Woodbury <rmwoodbury at roadrunner.com>
>> Subject: [V6-12v] A6 transmission mystery
>> To: v6-12v at audifans.com
>> Cc: 200q20v at audifans.com
>> Date: Wednesday, January 7, 2009, 9:19 PM
>>
>> I am sending this query to everyone that I can reach about a
>> transmission
>> issue with an A6 Avant that my wrench has.  The car has a very hard gear
>> selection problem that needs a diagnosis and solution if possible.
>> Perhaps
>> someone on one of these lists has had or heard of a similar problem.
>>
>> The car is a 1997 A6 Avant Quattro with just over 200K.  The car is in
> very
>> nice overall condition but was towed in yesterday due to the very hard
> gear
>> selection problem
>>
>> What happens is that the gear selector has a very stiff troubled
>> movement
>> from Park to any gear, and then from gear to gear.  It would appear that
>> the main transmission input shaft may be corroded within the gear set
>> itself, or perhaps within the valve body of the transmission itself.
>>
>> Short of doing a complete tear down we are wondering if this is
>> something
>> that anyone has had happen before. The car's overall condition is
>> excellent,
>> not even considering the miles:  the car looks like less than 100k not
> more
>> than twice that.  Maintenance is current.
>>
>> The car was given to the current owners and they will not do a $2,000
>> transmission job on the car but will move on to something else. Our
>> question is whether or not this might be something simple, or it will
>> involve a major operation to get the transmission to move from gear to
> gear
>> smoothly.
>>
>> TIA,
>>
>> Roger
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> V6-12v mailing list
>> V6-12v at audifans.com
>> http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/v6-12v
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> V6-12v mailing list
>> V6-12v at audifans.com
>> http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/v6-12v
>>
>>
>> End of V6-12v Digest, Vol 60, Issue 1
>> *************************************
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> V6-12v mailing list
> V6-12v at audifans.com
> http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/v6-12v
>