I have been seeing brown oil like splotches on the garage floor for a time. The garage is level side to side, but slopes down from front of the car to rear at the garage door for reference. Yesterday I experienced a weird shift into Reverse where the gear simply did not engage and then the PRNDL on the dash went into orange background with white letters. I can' t recall how I cleared that but I did and drove home and parked it in the garage where it sits.

The fault code and it was 009987 (I will attach photo of the VCDS printout).

This afternoon I went under the car to get a better look at my leak. Here are some photos:


The connector feels physically damp/wet. The drain port has a drip.

I am struggling with the oil here. Both the weep hole that is half moon shape and the little one under the lines appear dry.

I got the car up and to my eye level to check the trans fluid. It is Lifeguard 8 and was done 40,000 miles ago. I was a bit surprised as about a cup came out the moment I removed the plug. I was surprised by the color - more of a muddy brown and it had lost all trace of the green.

The flywheel is absolutely dry, a q-tip into the half moon drain hole yielded some black but nothing brown and wet, the small circular hole was similar. But, I can't see how fluid would migrate to that area from the harness seal(?). The belly pan shows a fair amount of fluid directly under the connector an very little in the center.

Any thoughts?

My question is: to replace the harness seal am I dropping the Mechatronic unit in addition to the pan? Or can I get to it just by removing the pan?

 

VCDS Transmission module report

 

As I said in our DM, looks like its the oring on the connector. No need to drop the pan to replace it. If I remember correctly (like over 10 yrs ago now) it was just a twist and lock style connector.

 

I did the job late last week using a kit from FCPEuro that came with 9l of Lifeguard 8. I spent quite a bit of time getting the car level on a sloping garage floor. This was probably the most time consuming single task.

I drained the old fluid into a Rubbermaid tote lined with a contractor grade plastic bag. Between this and the pan, I would guess I got 2.5l out if that. For whatever reason, I got every Torx wrong. The pan were T-27 and the Mechatronics were T-40. Once the Mechatronic unit was out replacing the seals on the sleeve was easy. In retrospect, I should have ordered a new sleeve, mine was covered in sand and grit on the outside part of the sleeve. I also replaced the bridge seal and filter. The magnets after 40,000 miles seemed pretty clean; only a thin film of material was present. No porcupine, nothing thick.

I had cleaned out my Motive brake fluid pump in anticipation of using it for the fill but bailed out thinking I would never clean it out. I wound up using a large funnel at eye level on my bike stand plus some hose, clamps and a little hook shaped fill tube from FCPEuro. It was a helluva mess and something I will not repeat. We still ended up with 3 unused liters and maybe got 4.5-5 in?

The car is buttoned up. I still have what I would call "hard" shifts between 1 & 2 and 2 & 3 when the car is first started. Once it is warm, if shifts beautifully.

No more leaks on the garage floor either.

 

Did you fill your tranny per the instructions, i.e., ATF just running out of the drain plug when the ATF is at 40 C?

 

I was using the ZF instructions for the transmission and did the level set between 30 - 35 degrees C per VCDS. I was thinking of paying a shop to check this step. On the other hand, based on how low it was I wonder how sensitive the level is.....

 

@Sallad Nailed it. Two months later the area is bone dry and new new spots on the garage floor.

Thanks.