MP4.2+6.0

The tranny is supplied by ZF, one of the world's largest tranny OEMs. It is also used in the heavier BMW's, Jaguars and lots of other cars. Yes, Audi needs to support it, but it's not their design. It also interacts with a lot of the engine control electronics supplied by Bosch. If you want to avoid Bosch, start thinking Japanese or American cars as your only alternative. They are in most everything Euro.

FWIW, clunk stuff sometimes ends up resolved or improved with new fluids and filter. Seldom done, but I would say valve body might be most likely next fix; not sure of the D3 set up, but on D2's or C5's it could be removed with the tranny in the car. Rebuilt it was $5-600, plus labor, filter and fluid. The dealer/warranty won't generally open the tranny, only doing a "forklift" change out of the whole unit. Thus valve body rebuilds are more the province of a few DIY'ers or shops after the new car warranty is over. FWIW I did a rebuild on my C5 4.2 and it shifts better than new, and never, ever misses any shift, clunks or does anything other than go right now. Currently at 95K miles. Can also be more obscure stuff.

First step would normally be the fluid per the TSB to change to the (big bucks) blue stuff used on the W12 and put into the V8's when they have the "hoot" problem. (see TSB's). From experience, the clunk issues can end up being very obscure and hard to find. On my C5 I had one that was both a faulty MAF and an intermittent/partially broken wire to the output speed sensor on the tranny. You may also find some relief cleaning the throttle body (not the MAF, the fly by wire throttle body bolted to the intake manifold).

If you want to research clunk issues more, likely best to search on the other boards that use the six speed ZF tranny in much higher volume than the D3, particularly the C6 (A6) and the Q7. Those cars are like 10x the D3 volume, and few D3'ers are DIY'ers so far. You will find tons of posts on it on the D2 A8 board and some on the C5 A6 board, but that is the older 5 speed 5HP24A trannny. You can also try paging a guy named tozoM8 on the A8 boards. He seems to be the wiz at the ZF tranny and clunk issues. Haven't seen him post lately, at least on this board.

Eric (Plug Guy)

Great stuff MP....I'm on it.

Thanks!

derfA8L

According to my dealer, there's now a "new" GREEN-colored tranny fluid that Audi has speced to supercede the BLUE fluid. I'm bringing my car in next month when I can leave it with them. They have to link-up the car's systems with Audi tech services and have them do a diagnostic check --- before they get the go-ahead to use the new fluid, which I'm told is not readily available at this point.

Eric (Plug Guy)

Drove the car tonight....damn, it is now WORSE than it was last week after 5 days at dealer. AudiUSA called today, I gave them an update and indicated it was worse, yet they still seem clueless.

Not sure where this goes from here, but pressure is on AudiUSA to give dealer some REAL info so they can get to work. My words were basically for them to tell the dealer how to work on the problem to resolve it, involving actual hands and tools touching the car - NOT waiting for a stupid computer readout to show something.

We had MB vehicles for over 20 years, and all I can remember is that if there was a problem with a Mercedes, the dealer dug in and dug deep until they resolved it.

Audi seems to be an entirely different, if not lame, animal. No active plan, no real sense of how to resolve this, no answers, just 'we will get back to you within 2 days'.....and they do, with little or no action.

Really frustrated at this point.

Who has the right names/addresses at AudiUSA to write?

Eric (Plug Guy)

Wife (drives it daily) took it to dealer today, as last night it was really getting funky and more frequent. Repeated with tech in car, at least 5-6 times. Now they still have NO freaking clue what to do, awaiting word from AudiUSA.

They also asked her to put it in sport mode, and yep, does it even worse in sport mode.

I'm working on legal steps now. This is BS.

Mister Bally

I hope they make you whole and you feel happy. A new/remanufactured transmission would be the best think other than a new vehicle.

Wouldn't that be something if it was something really silly like a bad ground to the transmission ECU? It's possible you know.

chazertis

now that you've successfully replicated it with mechanics and dealer staff in the car, i'm pretty sure something definitive will be done. they can't just leave a customer stranded with a shrug of the shoulders.

Eric (Plug Guy)

UPDATE 7/28

After my letter went out to AudiUSA President and his #2 in charge of service, and the dealer had the car another day last week, and my information posting to the service manager about what I learned here and elsewhere.....

NEW TRANNY went in yesterday!

Got a call from AudiUSA senior staff who works in the Pres's office that the problem in my A8L appeared NOT to be the tranny, but the 'mechatronics' unit.

I was puzzled by this statement, since for the past few weeks I've been letting them know all the issues and begging them to peruse their knowledge base, as surely this has happened before. But they came up dry each time.

Mechatronic unit would have taken a few weeks to get here from Germany (do they not stock them?) but I was pleasantly surprised they went ahead and did the full tranny (which has the unit in it already).

Work was done Friday and Monday, driven a good bit by tech and manager, and I picked it up today (fingers crossed). So far, so good. Smooth as butter on the 1st the 2nd transition, no problems thus far. Will give it a workout in a day or so on some longer runs.

Oh yeah, I questioned the blue vs green fluid, yet no one answered until today. The 'blue' is actually 'gold' and the newest is green. I have green.

Thank you to those who posted various tips, tricks and suggestions. I think in the end my pressing the dealer, them pressing their regional folks, and then my letters to the #1 and #2 execs at AudiUSA perhaps made all this work. Shame it had to go that far. At least there is a record of it now, and I hope this helps anyone else unfortunate enough to have this issue happen to their Audi.

Thanks!

MP4.2+6.0

is ZF speak for the electronic valve body. If you go back to my original post, that was among my prime guesses. And as usual, sounds like Audi doesn't replace it but does the tranny forklift upgrade. For folks out of warranty with the issue, it's more guidance to possible fixes. Did it on my C5 4.2 (with the 5 speed tranny) through the ZF authorized rebuilder in CT. Ever since (plus, found an obscure broken wire to the output speed sensor on the tranny) shifts have been very smooth; did not require tranny removal, which was a huge benefit.

ludikraut

Could you provide a link to the TSB, or some additional detail in regards to the "hoot" problem? My '04 makes some decel noise that sounds suspiciously like the rear diff whining, which leads me to believe that new fluids are in order ASAP.

l8r)