Skipnsarah

Thinking of buying an A6, 4.2., are there transmission problems???

Boston Driver

...I have not heard of any recent A6 4.2 folks here on AW losing a tranny. This question was raised recently on the A6 forum when one of the members was asking about the reputation of turbos (everyone always says that the 2.7T is unreliable due to turbos), so he asked when was the last time someone lost a turbo. I then posted a thread asking the same question of the V8 4.2...when was the last time anyone blew a tranny.

(FYI - someone posted today that they blew a turbo in his 2.7T)

Here is my post:<ul><li><a href="https://forums.audiworld.com/a6/msgs/726426.phtml">4.2 blown tranny question</a></li></ul>

BeefyOsito

I don't get it. I asked about having my B6 S4 serviced and the service advisor told me that it was bad for the gearbox. He said that the gear oil contains friction material from the metal of the gearbox that is in suspension and that changing the fluid was going to actually accelerate wear. I have never heard of such a thing. I'm still not convinced that the gearbox is a maintenance free unit.

MP4.2+6.0

If they build it into the service schedule, then pre 2006 they paid for it. Regardless of year, any scheduled maintenance item goes into cost of ownership calculations, which hurts them in competitive evaluations that measure that. Finally if a tech is anywhere near a tranny that blows up anywhere close to a fluid change, they get blamed. Since statistically they probably do blow up every more than 1% of the time w/in a few thousand miles of a fluid change if you assume a 150K life (and maybe more since people who want it done more likely have a tranny issue to start) and the first change is likely not until 50K + miles, that can be an expensive finger pointing contest for all concerned.

Finally, the average buyer probably thinks lifetime fluids are a good thing not a bad thing, and he/she simply doesn't connect it with downstream problems.

BeefyOsito

I'm at 48k right now. They told me $400 for the service. That's a small price to pay considering that this transmission is at least $4500 to replace. I'm not experiencing any problems. I just want to do preventative maintenance.

Press

had mine changed at 30k and again at 60k....fwiw