ppinto1

I have a 98 A6 Quattro Sedan, 2.8 30V with Tiptronic. The car has 175,000 miles on it.

I've changed the transmission fluid and filter twice (what a job). Once at around 100,000, and this past weekend.

I changed it this weekend because the transmission began to do something odd two months ago. Between gears, it lingers for about half a second. Half of the time when it lingers, it picks up 2-300 RPM before it starts engaging the next gear. This only happens on upshifts. And, it seems to not happen under more than half throttle.

The transmission never slips once a gear is engaged. OH, it also exibits the behavior in tiptronic mode.

Has anyone had this experience? Am I looking at a lot of $$ here?

Thanks in advance,
Peter

ppinto1

Sorry, I forgot to mention something.

Both fluid changes had almost no metal fragments on the pan magnets at all. The fluid was, however, VERY dark - blackish. It comes of the the expensive Audi liters, when new, looking almost like light beer.

QCRAZY

How's your fluid level when the car is warm. Sounds a little like low tranny fluid?

Goldmember

I have had experience on this exact problem and ended up being low voltage from the charging system. Replace the alternator and transmission problem went away. A quick way to find out would be to have your local parts place test your charging system, most do it for free.

DWP

Now that is really wild. You serious? Never would have thought of that!

Goldmember

made an a$$ of myself when i told the technician that made the claim, that he was crazy. But sure enough as soon as they put the test equipment on the charging system with me standing there watching, lots of beeps and numbers later the test "FAILED". I told them to replace the alternator but if the transmission problem didnt go away then I wasnt paying the labor, only the parts.

Not only did I end up paying the entire bill but was amazed that this was my problem. I dont know the why of it but just that it worked.

I would be interested to here if anyone has an explanation as to why this would cause the problem described.

PaulW

What was your operating voltage when running? Less than 13 VDC?

Goldmember

I dont remember the exact number but it was a low voltage problem.

ppinto1

Thanks for the suggestion. So, did the problem get worse when you used your headlights and such? I haven't noticed any difference in day or night.

ppinto1

I built a filling tool using a funnel, hose, and copper tubing. After filling it when it was not running, I started the engine, ran through all the gears for 10 seconds each, and continued filling until it spilled over.

The manual says to not do this with fluid temp above 104 degress F. Judging from the bottom of the pan, I did not reach this temperature.