Re. Aston Martin 2004 Vanquish

[Andrew Bristow]

I have a 2004 Vanquish. I have replaced the clutch, the magnetic sensors, the ASM pump and the pump relay. Every now and again after I have driven a few miles the gear position sign on the dash flickers and makes a beep. This can happen a number of times and then it seems to sort itself out. Just recently my wife and I did a 1000 mile trip in the car over 3 days. On the first day the sign flickered and beeped for the first half an hour. After that we had no further problems with the car until the last day when after an hours driving the car went into neutral at about 30 miles per hour. I pulled off the road, turned off the ignition and then tried to start it again. Nothing happened. After half an hour I turned on the ignition again, pulled the paddles, the car went into neutral and started. I was then able to drive home for 3 hours with no further problems. The only code that ever comes up after the check engine light comes on is PO945. Is anyone able to come up with a solution to this intermittent problem? Any help would be greatly appreciated. many thanks.

[V8LM]

When was the fluid last changed? What's its level? Could be a faulty fluid pressure sensor.

[JohnG1]

Post this in the Bamford Rose thread. They are the go-to guys for original Vanquish.

Being in Australia is a long way, but they can get there and do work. I live in Sydney and was going to get one of their guys to fly over with some parts for my V12V.

[steveirl]

From memory Andrew, the fault code you mention definitely relates to the transmission hydraulic circuit system, and I think it is the relay circuit for the ASM pump. I know you have replaced pump, relay, and sensors, so all should be well, but as Mike Bamford said to me during my turbulent ownership of a Vanquish, "they are a diva, and sometimes this side of them requires more attention and patience than is normal"
I highly recommend Bamford Rose btw, and hope you get it sorted.

[BamfordMike]

When upgrading from the old level gear position sensors fashioned from twisted coat hangars to magnetic position which is same technology as current ASM, IMHO but without a shadow of doubt, that process is the most complex job a workshop / technician has to do on any Aston model (except restoration) and the opportunity for slight errors in attention to detail will cause fundamental operational issues later. I'm not suggesting workmanship is root cause but how many of these have you done? the first is a learning curve to say the least IME. How easy did the process on AMDS go to calibrate the sensor and learn the gear position self test? You clearly have the AMDS kit as this job is not possible without it, so;

Did hydraulic neutral always go back in perfect place at the start of a test sequence and at the end / did whatever you were using to slot in the shaft holes always perfectly go in?

What is your gear position plot like, can you scan and post up including neutral?
did system learn and save the self learn tune OK? and will it do subsequent self learn and save to TCU without errors?

On subject of TCU has it been updated with magnetic sensor calibration properly?

Whilst even when everything is set up 100%, the check gearbox light will occasionally flicker randomly - its a feature not a fault, the particular fault you mention is normally the old level ASM pump relay - was it 100% upgraded for new level 4 pin and not old level 5 pin relay?

When all problems like the above and the obvious concerning fluid and fluid level have been checked, the next is more detailed fault finding stuff. For instance, the trans ECU had to be removed to plug into AMDS harness extension kit to perform installation process, are the TCU plugs correctly clipped back home, or has moving of the harness created harness issues / high resistance or poor continuity? because the harness has been moved from its position set from original production, with age it becomes brittle and unhappy about being moved, most quirky problems on Vanquish which can not be found easy answers to normally come down to this sort of thing which is painfully time consuming to get to the bottom of - is one part of the labour of love owning a Vanquish!

Edited by BamfordMike on Tuesday 12th April 09:23

[jeyjey]

I had similar symptoms when my clutch position sensor failed. I still had the original wires at the time, so I had the clutch position sensor, clutch and magnetic sensors done all at once.

It took the lads at my dealership a couple of days with the octopus setup to get decent results. I sometimes get a "check gearbox" flicker on an off-ramp after a long highway run, but no other issues. (It's good to hear that's normal, anyway.)

Cheers,
Jeff.

[Andrew Bristow]

Mike,

The new relay I was sent is part no 1R12-37-10486, this has only 4 pins numbered 1,2,3 and 5. on the top it has ++13411 2E. is this the correct part?

[BamfordMike]

Andrew Bristow said:

Mike,

The new relay I was sent is part no 1R12-37-10486, this has only 4 pins numbered 1,2,3 and 5. on the top it has ++13411 2E. is this the correct part?

Sorry chap, got all the different relays buzzing round in my head mixed up, the correct relay is the part you have. The old 5 pin going to new 40 amp black 4 pin - the fault you reported seems the same as the one the 5 pin relay pings which is a backfed error signal to TCU which the 4 pin stops.

looks like its AMDS out time, retrace your gear position / neutral position set up steps, if no good then on to process of elimination fault finding.