02 TTR, 180 FWD, 80K miles. Pretty confident that it's the synchros. reverse and 1st just quit working yesterday. All other gears work just fine. Anyone know of a good place that does VW/AUDI transmission work near Augusta, GA? I'll take it to dealer if I have to, but it will probably take them 2 to 3 weeks to get it done.

Any thoughts InTTruder?

Thanks,
Mike

 

You can pick up a new trans from aptuning pretty cheap.

 

When you say quit working what do you mean? When shift for the gear is there nothing there? Are you being blocked?

 

The timing mark plug in the bell housing CAN come out and fall into the shift linkage and block access to first and reverse. Ask me how I know :-)
Look around at the linkage before you panic.

 

Thanks for the replies!

More weirdness.

Saturday I couldn't get it into first or reverse (That's what she said!- I digress)

Gears were blocked - couldn't move shifter into those positions, but all other gears worked fine. Also downshifting was troublesome.

so I pulled it into the garage right after this happened and left it there to bring in to the dealership Monday morning for them to diagnose.

I pushed it out of the garage Monday morning, started it and all the gears now work like there was never a problem. Shifting through all gears is smooth. WTH? I drove it gingerly today at first, then tried some normal driving/downshifting, taking off in first, backing up, etc...

Not a sign of the earlier problem.

All I can figure is that this is a shot across the bow warning me of a pending problem. My current plan is to take it in and have the tranny flushed, start using Redline MT90, and wait and see.

Thoughts? opinions? advice?

Thanks,
Mike

 

You may have a failing clutch,that will cause shifting problems and it can be intermittent,especially when the center spline hub gets loose,sometimes it will function perfect and sometimes it will have hard shifts.

 

Usually failing synchros will make grinding noises and will not just totally go away(you might be able to improve it slightly with different oil).

It could also be a failing clutch slave cylinder. As the cylinder fails it will not hold pressure so when you press the clutch, it is not totally disengaging and you will not be able to get it into gear (it feels like it is being blocked) an easy way to check for this is to try to put it into gear when the car is off. also if you start the car with it in first gear and the clutch pedal pushed in the car will jump forward a little. Mine started to do that, at first it was just a little bump, like it was just slightly catching and eventually the car would jump a little. That was around the point where I was having a hard time getting it into gear and had to replace everything.

 

"It could also be a failing clutch slave cylinder. As the cylinder fails it will not hold pressure so when you press the clutch, it is not totally disengaging and you will not be able to get it into gear"

The clutch would feel different though and soon it will stick to the floor when released, if this is the issue.

 

Ya my TT does this stupid crap to. Just blame it on more German garbage engineering and overpriced stuff. For me 1 year ago, for about 2 weeks straight I couldn't get reverse and then it went away. I have never had a problem since.

Just recently I put in Redline MT-90. That caused me to get blocked from 2 and reverse and grind 5th. Then reverse would go in easy but be a biotch to come out. 1st would be easy to get then be hard to get out of gear. This was because I used redline MT-90 tranny fluid. I noticed anytime the outside temp was below 50F the tranny would block me on gears left and right till it the car warmed up. After getting warm everything worked perfectly fine. I put back in the oem fluid and no more issues any more in the cold or warm. Redline has to high a viscosity for these cars and if you live in an area where the temp goes to 15F or below never put redline in your Audi.
If your clutch had issues you would have issues in all all gears. Same with slave issues, plus if the slave is leaking you should notice a fluid loss.

I don't grind synchros either when my tranny gets pms I put it in what ever gear I can, because even double clutching doesn't work when the tranny has pms. Once the PMS goes away the trany always works perfectly fine.

So no this is not a sign of anything. Just don't force it when the tranny give you crap.

Its just more crummy german engineering. Like the stabilizer links that only last 30k miles, and front control arm bushings that begin to tear at 60k, and the strut mounts that fail at 60k, and the need for a haldex filter and oil every 30k, and the 1.8t engines that build sludge even with synthetic and only long trip driving, and a dash that will fail, and a glove box door that will break, and windows that will lose their position if your passenger gets in at the just right time or cycles their window at the right time, and the CD changer that will randomly not read cd's then start working again, and an intake system that requires you build a boost leak tester with a pvc cap and air fitting with silicone hose to slip over the turbo inlet to find all your rotting vacuum hoses and leaks to get a smooth idle again after a bunch of yahoo's online say you should replace your ingnition packs, and the need for revised ignition packs to replace the crappy gen 1 & 2 german engineering ones which cause miss fires because of the wire's insulation that broke down from excessive partial disharge/corona from poor wicking of the epoxy- ya thats right they don't VPI those, clear coat finish on the rims that will corrode underneath for no apparent reason, Wheel bearings that will fail around 100k along with CV boots. The need for new rotor with your first brake job because the oem pads eat the hell out of your rotors and dust like none other while causing pitting in your rims and brake dust that imbeds in your rear bumper paint causing spec's of rust that need to be polished out. Air leak/wind noise at high speeds because of some half a$$ german engineering that knows there is a problem with the weather stripping where the window split meets the A-pillar so they just add extra insulation/stiffen/(band-aid) with in the molding to get the car out the door. Almost forgot to mention a car sold with the worse powertrain warranty cuz Audi's warranty cost would be to high. One more Miscellaneous, locking devices/nuts coming off shields causing them to rattle becuase of some more cheap german engineering not using real nuts but stamped steel. Strut covers that will rip around 60k.

As you can tell I have owned an Audi pretty long. I used to play with cars as a hobby but now that I own an Audi, I am full time mechanic with it.

Then you have to put up with companies wanting to charge $400 for a new Luk flywheel when autozone sells them for $275, plus over charging for luk clutches when autozone sells them for cheaper.

 

There is a much easier way to check the slave. Start the car hold the clutch for about 30 sec, then very slowly go in to first, if your grinding the synchro and it won't stop when you hold it at that point, you got a slave. This assuming that when you put the clutch in right away you don't grind the gear right away. Which could indicate bad slave or warped pressure plate.