Bronco Joe

my wife's '03 allroad 2.7t has a tranny issue. When you place it in reverse, the car acts like it's in neutral, as if the reverse gear doesn't exist. there are no warning lights and she's kept it maintained, sometimes not as timely as I would have preferred but it's done eventually. other gears work normally. Local mech is figuring tranny replacement/rebuild but no quality rebuilt transmissions are available. Never had transmission issues before so this is new territory for me. Throwing it out there in case any ideas OTHER than replacing the transmission.

if we do end up having to replace the transmission, we'll be spending more than we care to given the car is a little over 100k. Open to best advice on how to handle, use as trade-in fodder, ebay, list here or autotrader, donate to goodwill? I don't want to consider craig's list. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Haulroad

Although it's possible something mechanical could be malfunctioning inside of the trans, these tips are fairly reliable and its usually something else. Missing in reverse is probably the most common first symptom of a failing nuetral saftey switch. Often times if its gone past just missing and it completely just feels like its in nuetral you'd already be in limp mode, which basically means the switch can no longer tell what position to put the trans in, a white bar highlights the RNDS and the car becomes unusable. If you have access to a Vag com a P0706 code will indicate a bad nss. The switch isnt too expensive but its an absolute royal pain in the *** to replace being tucked under the trans mount and subframe on the upper side of the transmission. Best case scenario, the nss connector is right on the belly of the car kinda beneath the drivers side turbo which can sometimes get disconnected or covered in oil and coolant which can cause the nss to misbehave so take a look at that, worst case youve got a bad trans. If you have a P0741 torque converter lock up code it could be the ladder. If the trans is bad, throw a 6mt and some turbos at it and your wife can daily an 11 second grocery getter.

Bronco Joe

thank you for your thoughts Haulroad. If it helps any, the car seems to drive ok going forward, it's just that reverse doesn't seem to exist any longer. That's a nice thought about doing a tranny change but truly we don't think the car's worth putting that kind of money into any longer.