After 4 long years my transmission troubles have finally been resolved.(I Hope) My troubles started when I noticed a rough downshift from 2nd into 1st while coming to a stop. So I went to my local dealer to have them run diagnostics. They claimed that there were no trouble codes. They claimed the tranny fluid was low and said that they added fluid took it for a drive and all was well. The same problem continued for over a year with them offering the same fix of adding fluid. After 9 or 10 visits I decided that was enough. I contacted Audi North America which made things even worse by telling the dealer that I was complaining about their technician (which I wasn't) and they themselves offered no real help or solutions. I decided to go to another dealership. Their tech ran diagnostics while driving my car and discovered that the torque converter was bad. So out came the engine and tranny so the converter could be replaced. Again all seemed well for about a day. Repeated visits seemed to be yielding the same results as the previous dealership. They were basically telling me nothing was wrong even though the rough downshift and now occasional sloppy upshifts were occuring. Frustrated I continued driving my car until one day the tranny started making a whining noise and started to smell due to the tranny leaking fluid onto the exhaust. They could no longer ignore that there was a problem. So they replaced my original tranny with a remanufactured one which leaked all over the place. 10 day later they replaced that transmission with another remanufactured unit. This one leaked as well. I agin returned to the dealer about 8 days ago. I just got my car back yesterday May 4. It does not leak anymore, but there explanation about how they stopped the leak made no sense whatsoever. I am curious about what they actually did and if it will start leaking again in the future. Thak god for the extended warranty. Its up in July unfortunatley. They tell me that I have 1 year or 12,000 miles of warranty on this tranny though. Just wanted to get this out there and see if anyone else has had similar problems. Sorry this is so long but as you can see so were my troubles. And now to get the DRC replaced....

 

Wow, what was their explanation of the leak? Could be they installed the Re-manufactured "new" ones wrong both times and found the common mistake?

Mike

 

For the first transmission replacement there was no real explanation. And for the second it was pretty much the same. All they could tell me was that the leak was coming from a cross member that bolted to the transmission. I was confused by that explanation to say the least. I would absolutely agree with you that it was installed wrong every time and they found their common mistake. I would still love to know exactly what it was they did. They had my car for about a week and that was the best explanation they could give. By the way my car only has 20,000 miles and no modifications. Another reason I don't understand why this happened. It seems like the more they "worked" on it the worse it got. And driving it over the last couple of days the rough downshifts and occasional rough upshifts have returned.

 

It may come down to lack of experience. The whole front of the car gets ripped apart to remove the engine/trans.

If your getting a tech with poor workmanship or lack of experience. There are alot of items that can get screwed up.

Mark from Chicago just had his trans replaced and a line leaked after the repair. Guess what, yes the whole think had to come out again just to replace a feed line.

Its not like doing open heart surgery and test firing the heart before you close up. You have to close up and then test fire the engine. If you have a leak....you have to open her up again. Not fun.

 

Well i was going to ignore this forum...good news is that it takes your dealer only one week to replace the trans. I haven't seen mine in 4 weeks thanks to a series of events. I have never had leaking from the trans so no idea what they are doing wrong there but in my case this is the car's third transmission and 4th torque converter (TC 1 at 29K, first trans at 30K along with TC #2, second trans just went at 74K), unmodded but well ummm loved car. They damaged an oil line to the turbos on my car putting the new one back in two weeks ago. Then needed to also replace a seal at one end of the new line (clock restarts waiting for additional parts from the motherland)...which required dropping the engine and taking apart the front again. Putting the bumper back on they managed to scratch the hell out of the front edge of my fender with a screw they missed while adjusted the bumper cover (see my post on QW). So off to the body shop it went. I get it back Saturday finally. I have been very disappointed in how well my car goes back together...it looks like it has been in a front end accident when it hasn't, entire front looks off every time (my front has been off at least a dozen times for one reason or another) and they can't seem to get it tight looking. Headlights, gaps, and trim slightly off and bumper not tight at wheel wheels. I am hoping body shop got it right as i went ahead and got my front bumper repainted as dealer offered that anything else i wanted could be at wholesale pricing from the shop.

Back to your issue honestly these cars just shift clunky anyway but where i really feel it going is a slight slipping on hard acceleration and a slow shift to 1st (it clunks into 1) when i stop at a light. Sounds like maybe the rebuilt units were not up to the task if failed immediately. Or maybe they did screw up the install. These transmissions are weak and your car is another example of why i constantly bring it up on the forums as it is as bad as the DRC failures. While i drive hard, i don't drive 3 transmissions hard.

 

Mine just started shifting sloppy a few days ago. When mildly driven it will upshift almost normally, slightly rough, however when you hit the accelerator hard it won't shift out of first gear. I have not had the vehicle that long. I was told the fluid was not low and there was nothing wrong with the transmission. I guess it's supposed to stay in first gear when gassed hard.

Has anyone else had this happen?

 

Not supposed to stay in first in any situation - D, S or Tip. Should always go to second when you hit redline.